Smrt Lernins

This week started out rough, but ended up productive.

Since winter break, Cpt. Science has been completely unwilling to do any work. Along with that, he’s been Bad Attitude Boy, smart mouthing and back talking and arguing. Things finally came to a head on Tuesday, when he pitched a shrieking, stomping tantrum at the park. Well, I don’t tolerate a tantrum from a nine year old, so we implemented what I like to call prison-style homeschooling: confinement to the house, most basic of subjects only (math, language arts, history), and lots of running if work isn’t completed or if there’s any back talk or rudeness. Captain Science ran an awful lot on Tuesday. He also missed out on science lab and wasn’t allowed to play with friends, visit Nana, or leave the house for anything but running.

Miraculously, he woke up on Wednesday, had a morning run, and was downright chipper. Not only did he finish his work in a timely manner, he did it with a glad heart, and the work was top notch! At the least sign of the return of the bad attitude, he was sent out to run four laps up and down the street. Each time, he came in with an even better attitude and work ethic. By today, he was zooming through his subjects with enthusiasm and determination, turning in top-notch work and using his best manners. He was rewarded with a short trip over to Nana’s house to play with his friends there, something he hasn’t been able to do during our week of prison-style homeschooling.

During three days of near-perfect homeschooling, Captain Science read about the fall of Rome and wrote a lovely essay about that, then made a great joke about part of Rome being attacked by birds, and becoming Turkey. He passed the bridge to chapter 15 in Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents in two tries, missing only two on the first try (most likely due to misreading his own handwriting in the middle of a problem) and only one on the second try (due to misreading “0″ as “6″ in the middle of a problem — time to work on handwriting again!). He read several chapters in Science: The Definitive Visual Guide, which we discussed. He did the last chapter in Vocabulary from Classical Roots that he will be doing, then passed the test on the previous four chapters. He also finished several sections in Writing Strands 3.

Next week, we toss Writing Strands, Vocabulary from Classical Roots, and Editor in Chief A1 in favor of the Michael Clay Thompson Town-level language arts curriculum. I’m so excited, and so is Captain Science.

Mostly, though, I’m excited that we’re finally back on track again!

Surely not!

The last two days, we’ve charged Captain Science with the task of setting goals for himself and meeting them. If he can continue to do that through tomorrow’s work, then on Friday we will mail in the check for the Starbase program at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, a 5-week, one day a week course in aeronautics. If he can’t demonstrate the ability to set goals and complete his required work, he won’t be going. If he can, then he will.

Yesterday, he set rather long time periods for himself to complete the work (an hour to complete two math problems), but finished most of the work well before his own goal. Today, he’s set much more realistic goals and come within a few minutes of meeting all of them. For instance, he gave himself 45 minutes to complete math (6 problems), which would have put his finish time at 10:15. At 10:10, I check in with him, and he had only done a problem and a half. I reminded him of his goal, reminded him that he had to meet his goals at least reasonably well in order to attend Starbase, but didn’t express any emotion about the situation at all.

At 10:19, he came upstairs with completed math work. Funny how that works.

He completed his language arts, for which he’d allowed himself another 45 minutes, within just over 30 minutes, then took a snack break, and is rewarding himself now with his history. He’s been looking forward to the topic of the Roman army since we started Rome, and now he finally gets to read and write about he. He’s given himself an hour and fifteen minutes to read the chapter and write his essay, so as long as he completes it within an hour and a half or so, I’d say he’s stayed on task for all his major assignments today, and we’ll call this day a major win!

The goals he is setting are very close to the time blocks on the schedule, so we’ll try to get back to that next week. He’s been a little disappointed we aren’t sticking to it, and keeps saying, “But the schedule says it’s time for…” I’ve explained that, this week, he’s setting his schedule and motivating himself, because obviously I can’t motivate him. If he finishes the week strong, then we’ll slowly start reintegrating the extra subjects he loves.

Feeling pretty good about our progress. Hopefully this is onward and upward.

“Everyone homeschooler thinks her child is gifted.”

I haven’t even been homeschooling for a year, and I’ve already heard that statement more times than I can count. The perpetrator of the remark is usually a fellow homeschooler, though public/private schoolers sometimes say it, too. I’ve heard it said sarcastically, dismissively, bitterly, apologetically, patronizingly, and sometimes good-naturedly (with a little “bless their hearts” chuckle). I’ve seen it in blogs and on forums. Whether or not this is an attitude that the majority of people believe, it does seem to be fairly ubiquitous in the collective homeschooling mythos. I think there are a few different thoughts/intents behind the statement:

1. “My child isn’t gifted, so yours can’t be” (or the variation “My child isn’t gifted, and I’m resentful that yours is”).
2. “My child is gifted, but I’m afraid that if I say that, people will think I’m one of ‘those’ homeschooling moms.”
3. “I don’t understand the motivation to homeschool (or I fear that you think less of me because I don’t homeschool), so I’ll dismiss it as Special Snowflake Syndrome.”
4. “I’m tired of hearing bad behavior/developmental issues/general unpleasantness in a child rationalized by ‘he’s gifted!‘”

Now, I’m totally on board with that last one. I, too, am tired of all manner of behaviors being somehow justifiable because a child is supposedly gifted. Being smart doesn’t give you license to be a jackass. Quirky, yes. Eccentric, yes. But not a jackass. Having a gifted child doesn’t absolve you of your obligation to parent him, guide him, or correct him when he’s being a jackass. People are a lot more willing to accept your child’s giftedness if it isn’t wrapped in a box made of obnoxious jerk.

As for the others, well…

Here’s the thing: I do think there may be more gifted children among the homeschooling population than the mainstream school population, not because I think homeschooling makes your child gifted (I believe giftedness is inborn), but because I know there are many parents like me who have gifted children whom they have pulled from mainstream school because that particular set-up fails gifted students. Gifted students need to be taught differently than most public school teachers have been taught to teach. Homeschooling allows for working around some of the quirkier habits many highly gifted children share, while still challenging them to their fullest ability. For twice exceptional (2E) students, who are both gifted and have a learning problem, a homeschool environment can be even more beneficial. So yes, I think many, many parents have turned to homeschooling as a means of addressing the frustrations of the public school system (which was just not designed to teach the highest level of students).

In the homeschooling world, admitting you have a gifted child seems to be almost shameful. There’s the assumption by other that you’re making it up. If you don’t have “proof” of your child’s giftedness, you’re probably just another Special Snowflake mom with delusions of her own child’s grandeur. Of course, the parent of a truly gifted child can usually tell you as well as any test that something is different about her child. Gifted children don’t just work at a higher level, but have an ability to comprehend that is often far beyond their years. You can’t live with a child and not see that they grasp concepts most kids their age can’t.

Despite this, if you don’t have proof through testing, your child’s giftedness is in question in the homeschool community. As a result, parents write forum posts that include phrases like “my daughter isn’t gifted, just really bright…” and “my son is he’s working three grade levels ahead in all academic areas, but he’s not officially gifted…” Without proof of giftedness, they’re afraid to use the “g” word. If they did use it, the responses might vary from “why do you think your child is gifted?” to “a gifted child must use xyz curricula” to “you’re pushing your child TOO HARD!” Not only are you incapable of figuring out that your child is gifted, but on the off chance that he might be, you’re probably failing him academically, so it’s best to just keep your mouth shut about the whole thing (or just don’t mention your kid’s age when talking about curricula).

The first few times I heard “all homeschoolers think their child is gifted,” I said nothing. I wasn’t sure what to say. “My child is gifted” always sounded both defensive and like I’m exactly the kind of mom they’re talking about. Now, however, I’ve decided I can’t let that sleeping dog lie any longer. Captain Science is gifted — not “special snowflake gifted” or “working above grade level in a few areas gifted” like some people assume I mean, either. He knew upper and lower case letters and could write several of them at 18 months, could read at two, could follow (and often participate in) adult conversations — and understand that we’re an intelligent family (my brother, my parents, and I all tested into gifted classes when we were in school), so our conversations are often pretty fast-paced. We were told by his first school that they couldn’t challenge him enough because he already knew their whole curriculum through preK 4. He was skipped past kindergarten and into first grade by his second school. Before enrolling him in public school, we had him tested privately, and he tested an additional grade level ahead of his age (though we opted to not advance him a second year). In public school, he tested into gifted classes through both cognitive testing scores and subject knowledge testing scores. He’s gifted by any definition of the word — and still, I feel I have to justify my description of him as gifted (in fact, I’m doing that now, aren’t I?).

Let me tell you a little something about gifted children: A gifted child can still be awkward. He can still be as dorky as any kid. He can be totally disinterested in a subject. He can be perfectly willing to foist the work off on someone else. He can fail to grasp a concept on the first try (or he can care so little about the subject that he becomes purposefully obtuse). His sense of humor may seen absolutely bizarre to many people. He has areas of greater skill and natural talent, and areas where he’s ahead of grade level, but it’s still not his area where he flourishes. Just because the child in question does those things, it doesn’t mean s/he isn’t gifted.

Should I hide his light under a bushel because people believe identifying homeschooled children as gifted is de rigeur? Should I exhibit modesty topos on the Well Trained Mind forums for fear of people thinking I’ve misassessed my child’s abilities? Should I pander to the myth that gifted homeschoolers are a myth?

Personally, I’m inclined to tell them all to stuff it.

Today, Captain Science turns nine. I had anticipated feeling a little glum when his 10th birthday came along, because those double-digits are hailed as the point of “I’m so OLD! My baby is so OLD!” for parents. Instead, I found myself feeling pretty blue last night thinking about the birthday today. It wasn’t until I was in bed for the night that it hit me — I’m halfway “done” with raising him.

Captain Science is nine, and as anyone who has just completed Life of Fred: Fractions could easily tell you, 9 is 1/2 of 18. Eighteen! That rather arbitrary number indicates legal adulthood and we’re halfway there. In the same span of time it took him to reach the age he is now, he’ll be eligible to vote, to be drafted, to purchase cigarettes or lottery tickets, and to be completely legally responsible for all his own actions.

Of course, adulthood is much less concrete in actuality. Physically, he may well be man-sized at sixteen. Emotionally, he might not be ready to leave the nest at 18 (or he might be ready to fly earlier). If he never advances through lessons any faster than he has up to this point (a grade ahead), he’ll graduate at 16. Knowing Captain Science, though, there’s a good chance he could finish earlier than that. There’s also the simple fact that eighteen doesn’t really mean you’re done raising that kid. My parents continued to provide guidance, advise, and support (sometimes financial, sometime emotional) long after I turned 18. I lived with them for several years of my 20s while I was getting back on my feet after my divorce. Captain Science might leave home a happy, well adjusted college freshman at 17. We might have to pry him out of our basement with a crowbar in his late 20s.

Still, the idea of childhood being birth to 18 is firmly ingrained in my consciousness, and it’s hard to view 9 as anything other than Captain Science being halfway to that mythical land of Adulthood, where everything is finally Fair, and he can Have His Way, and do all the things he said he’d do when he became a Grown Up. My little nine pound baby is now nine years old. This is going way too fast.

Some days don’t start out as smoothly as I’d like them to be. Captain Science can’t (or won’t) do or remember something that I think he should. We go back and forth. You should remember this! I can’t remember this! You know how to do this! I don’t know how to do this! If you can’t learn at home, you’ll have to go back to public school! If I knew how to do voodoo, I’d poke a pin in your doll’s FACE! (Ok, made that last part up). Next thing you know, I’m on the verge of yelling and he’s on the verge of tears. This can easily derail our homeschooling day and make us both miserable. I feel frustrated with Captain Science for not doing his work and guilty for blowing up him. He feels frustrated with himself for not being able to do the work and angry with me for not listening to him. Yuck.

Lately, though, I’ve been working on techniques to help us regain our equilibrium on days like this. Taking a moment to step back and find our center can quickly repair the rift between us before it grows into a gulf and can get us back on track with our work for the day, two happy people.

Today is a good example of how we’re making this new system work. Captain Science had completely forgotten how to do direct objects, despite coming back to this topic multiple times in the last few months. He just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t pick it out of a sentence. His attempts at diagramming it were becoming more and more ludicrous, with words and lines all over the place. I was fussing at him for not being able to do it, why can’t he remember, is he not making an effort, ARGH! We were both starting to raise our voices and making emphatic, angry hand gestures (have I mentioned he’s sort of, just a little bit, exactly like me?). I was very close to just screaming at him and he was very close to weeping.

I took some advice my mother’s friend once gave her about dealing with errant husbands, “Make him a sandwich.” In this case, I took a deep breath and fed him a cookie, then tried to figure out the source of both our frustration.

My issue(s): I know he has a photographic memory, so I interpret his inability to remember something as an intentional failure to remember, which results in a feeling that he’s not trying and that he doesn’t pay attention to my teaching. In other words, it’s mostly not about him, but about me.
His issue: He doesn’t understand that value of knowing about direct objects, so he makes a subconscious decision not to bank the memory. In other words, it’s not at all about me, but about the relevance of it.
The solution(s) for me: Stop taking it personally. He’s NOT not remembering to spite me or because he disrespects me. He just doesn’t see why the subject is important, which is my failure, not his. The things that aggravate me about him are surely the traits in myself that I don’t like. Don’t get pissy w/ him about that.
The solution(s) for him: Explain to him why grammar in general has value. I know he responds well to the idea of coming across, in speech and in writing, as intelligent and well-spoken, partially because he likes people to know he is smart, but mainly because being able to express himself well is important to him. He is a child who needs to be heard and understood. When I told him that proper grammar makes him sound intelligent and educated, and that throughout his life, using language correctly will help him be understood and respected, I could a visible shift as he re-engaged with the subject. Go back through the topic in two different media (a quick online and then diagramming on paper) and also allow him to explain verbally which part of speech is which, using playful examples (“‘They ran home.’ Are they running the home? NO! Home is where they’re going, not what they’re running. So the home isn’t the direct object. If I say ‘I run the home,” is home a direct object? YES! And it’s also true, because I RUN THE HOME.”) to get him laughing.

Within a matter of minutes, we were being silly, giggling, and he could diagram all three example sentences perfectly, as well as identify with 100% accuracy whether a word was the direct object or predicate noun. Once informed of the relevance, he could turn that memory back on in his brain and use it. Cookies were eaten, work was finished, and now we’re having a grand fine time while he reads his Ancient Greek history lesson for the day and flails in his chair. “I feel suddenly wild!” he just said to me. I’m glad. Better wild (and happy) than miserable and tearful.

I’m glad we found our center. I’m proud of both of us.

This week in Lernins History, we hit the 60 day mark! Captain Science declared that to be 1/3 of our 180 days school year, or 33.3%, or .33. I can’t believe we’ve already gotten that far! We’ll easily hit 90 days by Christmas, at this rate. So exciting!

Captain Science completed tries 3-5 for the bridge to chapter 25 in Life of Fred: Fractions and did some additional practice with adding and multiplying mixed numbers using worksheets from Math Drills. On Monday, we’ll move on w/ Fred, now that he’s cemented these concepts.

In Vocabulary from Classical Roots, he completed lesson 4, which is a review of lessons 1-3. I’ll quiz him on his roots and words next week. We continued with our once-a-week grammar schedule, due to additional subjects we’ve added. The Captain continued adverbs in Growing With Grammar, covering chapters 6.4 (adverbs that compare), 6.5 (building sentences with adverbs), and 6.6 (double negatives). In Writing Strands, he continued working on “sentence and paragraph control,” completing days 5 and 6 of that lesson. He still enjoys the writing program and I’m so glad I decided to ditch IEW! Still no forward movement on getting that theory book to start handwriting, much to my shame, but his handwriting has been consistently better lately. Captain Science also passed Dance Mat Typing level 1 with flying colors and will start level 2 today.

Captain Science and Eclectic Girl completed their Science in a Nutshell sound vibrations unit. Because they finished all three sections on Thursday, while Patchfire only expected them to finish two, there’s no science lesson planned for today (Friday), which works out really well, as Eclectic Girl has come down with a bad cold and probably isn’t up for company tonight.

We’re now past our halfway point with Ancient Greece. Next week it will be math, science, and culture; the week after, we’ll do mythology for our ongoing pantheon project we began with Ancient Egypt. This week, however, it was the Greek expansion through Asia, the birth of democracy, and how myth became history, all from History: The Definitive Visual Guide. Captain Science wrote about the destruction of Alexander’s empire and about Greek histories. We did transition back to hand-written essays, because he was spacing out at the computer and not doing quality work. He has almost finished The Golden Fleece and I have decided to let him read one of the adult translations of The Iliad, just to see if he can do it (he was asking).

The biggest news this week is that we’ve finally gotten Logic Countdown and are integrating logic into our week. He started with logical comparisons, describing why items are grouped and adding additional items to a grouping. My favorite example was “wheat, rice, barley___.” He correctly labeled them as grains, and then added flax of all things as his additional example. Can’t add oats like a normal kid, right? Logic is currently his “reward” for making it through his other assignments in a timely manner.

The Tank had his harvest festival at preschool, the notes about which I apparently ignored, as I showed up at school with him a half hour too early AND not dressed for me to stay. We had to come home so I could replace my pajamas with real person clothes. Have I mentioned how much I dislike having to take him someplace three days a week? Yeah, not a fan. Tank, however, loves it and loves his pre-K teachers, Miss Amy and Miss Carin, who seem to equally adore him. They like to ask him what’s bothering him, because he always answers, “Nut’in,” and they think that’s cute. We did a mini pumpkin hunt and The Tank rode on a small train around the building. He brought home all manner of strange items — paintings done with gauze and a bag of scooped-out pumpkin guts. His newsletter for November says, much to my chagrin, that they will be doing lots of “Indian projects” for the letter I and to celebrate Thanksgiving. *shudder* They mean well, but oh my stars. Time to break out a mini-unit on Whitey Oppressor the Pilgrim, right? Maybe we’ll talk about King Phillip’s War.

Babypie impressed us all this week by standing unassisted…at 7 months. Yes, I’m less than thrilled by this sudden leap forward from babyhood. Luckily, it surprised her as much as it did me, and she plunked onto her bottom. I think Patchfire’s Purple Child is a bad influence. That age-mixing just won’t do! She’s still crawling up a storm, cruising around furniture, and being cute as can be. Officer Daddyman and I swear we heard her say “Dadaman” this week after hearing me say it (she’s been addressing him as “dada” for a couple of weeks now). She waves to her reflection frantically and chants “Hi! Hi! Hi!” every time we pass a mirror.

Officer Daddyman had some good arrests this week and is thinking about where he’d like his career to go from here. It’s time for a bit of a change, so maybe he can move to another unit. DUI looks promising — though it would be brutal hours, I’d be very proud of the work he’d be doing. He’s also trying to start back to college in either spring or summer, so we’ll be extra busy with our lernins!

As for me, I’ve almost finished reading A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome. Have I mentioned that history SURE IS INTERESTING? I’ll elaborate later. Other than that, I’ve been knitting, sewing, and planning a BOLD Red Tent with Patchfire and some other friends (who don’t have blog nicknames yet).

So impressed was he by the poem he is memorizing that Captain Science was compelled to write his own Greek poetry:

Ares
Oh the war and pain!
Oh Oh it’s Ares
He is ruining the hall
In the sunshine terrace
It is so scary
He causes so much terror
I like this god
But Zeus is fairer

The rhyme scheme would be perfect if he had known “Ares” was pronounce “Aireez” not like “heiress.” Otherwise, not a bad poem to whip out on the fly like that!

Captain Science just started his first memorization exercise. I read it aloud twice and then he read it aloud twice. I could tell when he read that he’d already learned part of just from hearing it twice. This is one of the blessings of having a gifted learner (I can also tell you about all the curses) — gotta love that photographic memory! He seems to have a good feel for the meter of the poem. I think he’ll have this learned and ready to recite to others in short order, then onward to something more difficult.

PROMETHEUS AMID HURRICANE AND EARTHQUAKE (from “Prometheus Bound”)

by: Aeschylus

EARTH is rocking in space!
And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar,
And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face,
And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round–
And the blasts of the winds universal leap free
And blow each other upon each, with a passion of sound,
And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea!
Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread,
From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along!
O my mother’s fair glory! O Æther, enringing
All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing,
Dost see how I suffer this wrong?

This English translation, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, of ‘Prometheus Amid Hurricane and Earthquake’ is reprinted from Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1893.

Captain Science, while looking up a word in the dictionary*, said with frustration, “Why do teachers make students memorize things? In the future, we’ll all have personal robots who tell us anything we need to know.”

I said, “Well, then in the future, we’ll all be pretty dumb, won’t we?”

Later he said he wanted a personal robot servant to flap his shirt for him, so that he could cool down. He also said his personal robot servant would fix him a snack. “I have lots of servant robot cooks.” When I told my mother, she said I should tell him he needs to learn a lot about mathematics and get a degree in robotics, so he could build his servant robots.

“I’ll just have my servants build them for me,” was The Captain’s response.

“Your servants?” I asked.

“Yes, when I’m rich and famous, I’ll have lots of servants.”

My mother pointed out that you have to do the work up front if you want all of that, because no one will give it to you (“unless you’re Paris Hilton,” she added). Captain Sciences says that he will invent new words and get rich off of them.

Sounds like a plan. Hope he remembers the little people.

*Please note that he wasn’t being asked to memorize anything here. He was just feeling pissy and this was the topic that popped into his mind, I guess.

Captain Science had an unexpected and tragic lesson about gravity today when he took a bad fall out of our Bradford Pear tree (to which I affectionate refer as the “stinking rotting fish tree”). The Tank came running up to the house to let us know what happened. The Captain was white as a sheet and his lips were absolutely bloodless. His arm definitely did not look right. We packed the kids up in the Battlestar Galactogogue (our minivan), dropped The Tank off at my aunt’s house, and whisked Captain Science to the urgent care, where, after a still unresolved throwdown over his name in the records, the urgent care people pronounced his arm oh-so-very broken, with a side of “maybe that needs pins.” The Captain’s records were sent over to the children’s hospital so we could get him looked at by the orthopedist.

We loaded everyone back up into the Battlestar, swung by the house to pick up extra diapers for Babypie, and trekked ITP (that’s “inside the Perimeter” for you non-Atlanta folks) to the children’s hospital, and waited in an ER that was probably rife with flying pig flu germs. We finally got a room, Captain Science’s arm was put in a bright red cast, and we were finally sent home after several hours to await a phone call letting us know whether we’re going back tomorrow so surgery can be performed on the Captain’s arm to place two pins in the bone.

He’s currently conked out from the pain, trauma, and first-ever dose of Lortab (which comes in a liquid form, FYI). I’m hoping tomorrow doesn’t bring a phone call we desperately do not want. I’m currently cleaning my house at nearly 2am, because I’m still so shaken up that sleep doesn’t seem like an option. I have no idea how I’m going to modify our homeschool curriculum to allow for the Captain’s one-armed state, because of course, it was his writing arm that got broken. We’re skipping science lab tomorrow, but I don’t know how much longer after that he’ll need a break, how much work he’ll be up for, or how we’ll get around the whole “can’t use his writing arm” thing when writing is an area he really need to work on.

My poor, brave baby barely cried, after the initial injury, but he sure is scared about the prospect of surgery, however simple and brief. I know we’re secular homeschoolers, but if you can find a prayer (or even a positive thought) in your heart for Captain Science, we’d sure appreciate it.