One More Student Whisperer Post

I thought I was done with the Student Whisperer, but the following point keeps coming to mind.

In the "personal experience" section, Ms. Earle talks about going to a simulation as a college student. (A simulation is some kind of simulated event-- in the book, she discussed a meeting-of-nations simulation, I think. It sounds sort of like debate, but deeper and in a variety of contexts.)

Anyway, after she came through the simulation, she talked about the constant tension, the man-on-the-ground immediacy of what was happening. Decisions had to be made quickly. There were so many people lobbying in different ways... well, let me just quote her:

"One girl said she was used to being in control,and when she realized she had no control over the way the simulation was going, it scared her."

Okay. Life is like that sometimes. Not everyone is like you. Some folks will behave in ways you cannot predict. Kids have to be prepared for it. Studying the Bible and history and literature frames our minds to respond properly in real-life experiences, which for students may come through sports, speech and debate, volunteering, part-time jobs, and theater and music collaborations and performances.

A friend of Ms. Earle's said the simulations helped him prepare for a tense situation later in life. He was in a condo association meeting and the majority shareholder became unreasonable. Her friend was able to keep his cool when the situation spiralled out of control. He helped resolve it.

We hope our kids will be able to handle situations like this by the time they leave home. Getting them out in real-life situations is a natural step after steeping them in the right books. I have a tough time with this one, because I would rather stay home and read and play music and watch movies with my family. So I post this as a reminder to myself that properly chosen extracurricular activities are a vital part of my kids' education.

(One more thing to remember is that experiences can only be called "real-life" if we allow the kids to experience them. If we engineer our kids' experiences so they don't have to deal with unpleasantness, that's not real life. We have to use discernment in order to decide if we need to intervene or not, but as they get older, they ought to have their experiences less and less diluted by their parents.)

Here Be Dragons

This is probably my last post on The Student Whisperer. I plan to go through the exercises in the second half, but I won't blog about them. Before leaving this book (blog-wise, at least), here are two final ideas I appreciated:

Students go through phases.

I won’t give details on the graph she uses to show the differing needs of students. (Buy the book!) But students’ needs change. Also, a particular student may cycle through phases, go through them out of order, and go through a phase more than once. This is important to remember. People are quirky. We aren't machines. We don't necessarily follow a straight line of development. Sometimes we need what my friend, Javamom, calls “space and grace”. Sometimes we need help structuring our work. Sometimes we need to hear a hard truth. Great teachers are sensitive to the changing needs of their students.

There are mountains to climb.

Learning can be delightful, but it can also be difficult. I sometimes forget this because didn’t Miss Mason say, “Studies serve for delight”? (Well, it was actually Sir Francis Bacon, but she quoted him.) If we aren’t constantly delighted, maybe we are doing it wrong… But I don't think so. We get inspired. We are delighted. We become hungry for mind-food. However, it isn’t necessarily easy to digest. Ms. Earle talks about a time in a student’s life after the novelty wears off and the work begins. The student still wants to learn, but it is definitely hard work, and sometimes he may think about giving up. I have seen my kids go through this. Sometimes a break is in order. Sometimes we need to seek out additional help. Sometimes the student just needs to push through. At times like these, I stock up on chocolate and I-love-you stickers. ;o) We pray. Also, we talk about the process. We try to discern the roadblock and get over or around it. This poem sometimes helps:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.


And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.

Let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-- that is to say, grace --
and circumstances
acting on your own good will
will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.

-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Math and the Student Whisperer

In the “personal experience” section of The Student Whisperer, Ms. Earle details a conversation she had with a student in which she explains that math is more than the systematic concepts we are taught in our textbooks. It is a philosophical search for truth. She is right. So much is left out of math courses these days-- ideas that would humanize mathematics for those that struggle.

At our house, we use math textbooks and systematic curriculum. I teach concepts in a logical progression. But we also read living math books as much as we can, eventually including Euclid and Newton. (I even found a book of math poetry, ha!) I am NOT a math person, but as a result of reading some of these books, I have a compelling desire to push through my computational and conceptual issues so that I can understand all aspects of this search for order in the universe. Because God likes math. How about that?