A few years back, the local ice skating rink offered homeschool ice skating classes at a reasonable rate, and we took them up on it, along with several other homeschool families in the area. The girls and I both enjoyed visiting with friends every Thursday, and the kids got some exercise and training in a sport-- bringing their bodies under subjection. It was very good.
And Mariel was *very* good. I mean, she is talented at ice skating. Her sisters are good, too, but Mariel has the risk-taking and high energy needed to really excel at this sport, and she intuitively knows how to spin and when to jump. She and her sisters wanted to keep taking lessons after they passed through the levels taught in the homeschool classes. A beginning ice skating coach agreed to teach all three of them in one private lesson, and we were off.
There was a small problem, though. Finances. It is *expensive* to get into ice skating. You pay for the skates, and the rink fees, and the coaching tuition and the competition fees and the costumes. We kept up the semi-private lessons for around six months (I think) using rental skates and barely scraping up rink fees, and then the girls' coach said she would like Mariel to enter a competition in the spring. There would be a competition fee and she would require a costume, and it might be a good idea to get her some better skates-- the blades on rental skates are so warped that they interfere with performance.
It was then that Mr. Honey and I realized that pursuing ice skating for even one of our three was not sustainable in our current financial situation-- that no matter how good it would be for our girl, we would be sacrificing other, weightier matters, to give her this dream.
This is a sad story, isn't it? I mean, we all want to give our kids the best. But there are limits to what we can give.
We talked to Mariel and explained that we just couldn't keep paying for the sport. We explained that if she really wanted to do it, she needed to work hard and save up money so we knew she was serious, and then we would put in as much as we could. She would probably have to get her lessons, skates, costumes and competitions in fits and starts, but would still be able to do her sport.
Now, a wise person would have counted the cost before committing and not have broken her daughter's heart. I never said we were wise. But we do learn lessons when experience knocks us over the head.
It just struck me as I was reading this article on the sustainability of government entitlement programs, that our government needs to learn the lesson that Mr. Honey and I learned in the ice skating situation and that Europe is now learning: if you commit to spending you cannot sustain, something will have to give down the road.
Let's say, in theory, that passing one of the recent spending bills in Congress would be (or was) a good thing. If the United States was the responsible head of a family, it would need to decide what it was going to eliminate from the budget in order to fit this new good thing into the budget.
But, as the article points out, once a popular government starts handing out money, it isn't strong enough to repeal those entitlements.
No joke. It was incredibly difficult as parents to backtrack with the ice skating. We did it because it was necessary, and we were able to do it because our household is not a democracy, nor even a republic. But it made us unpopular for awhile. And in a popular government, it is very hard to sustain your majority when you are unpopular.
We can only be a republic if we as a people have the integrity to deny ourselves. We are not superhumans-- our government is not immune to laws of economics. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone is paying for what someone else gets for free, and eventually the people paying get discouraged.
(I understand that some folks are in horrid financial straits, and all I am saying here is that if our government is going to help those folks, it needs to cut programs somewhere else. Money, like time, is finite.* However, my personal political belief is that help and relief ought to come from the private sector as much as possible, and that government's job is defense and infrastructure. Mr. Honey and I give as much as we can to worthy causes because of this belief. Of course, we are also paying for government entitlement programs. Think what we could do if we were free to focus our giving on organizations we feel are doing the best job helping folks.)
*((By this statement I mean that when you are doing a budget, there is a finite amount of money you can reasonably count on. I realize that in saying that 'money is finite' I open up the argument of wealth creation vs. spreading the wealth. I haven't studied enough to know my position on that issue. But we can all agree that there is a finite amount of money an entity can reasonably count on when figuring out a budget.))
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Education: the Knowledge of Man-- History
This is a continuation of my narration notes on Chapter 5 of Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's book, _For the Children's Sake_. If you haven't read it yet, I highly encourage you to put down whatever other educational reading you are doing and read her book. She is the daughter of Francis Schaeffer and her children attended a PNEU school in England in the 20th Century. She articulates CM's ideas in a way extremely relevant to our era.
When Mr. Honey and I first began considering homeschooling twelve years ago, this was the first book given us to read, followed closely by the Clarksons' _Educating the Wholehearted Child_ and books by Raymond and Dorothy Moore. We were right on the edge of the explosion in homeschool publishing that took place in the mid- to late-90s, and so got the tail-end of "pioneer" encouragement, if you know what I mean. These books have served us well, and continue to provide guidance through the sea of choices, encouraging us to revel in the Christian liberty that homeschooling ought to celebrate.
On to the narration notes on history (my own comments on the reading are in brackets, Macaulay's own words are in quotation marks, and my paraphrase is written as the regular text):
Our aim in history, as in all subject areas, is honesty and the truth. An education in history ought not to focus on the teacher's own opinion or agenda, but present the ideas that have been acted upon in history, together with their consequences. In this way, we raise up citizens with the ability to discern properly the absolutes that ought to govern any people, and thus make wise decisions concerning government, both personal and civil.
"It is important for the young person to know that there is a great deal to be said on both sides."
[Several years back, my dad and I were having a discussion on the teaching of history. He was helping me to pick out some books for the kids. I will always remember his comment: "the best thing you can say about history is that it is interesting." He was making the point that history is not simple. There is a great deal to admire and deplore on both 'sides' of an issue.]
"A memory feat is not the first aim as we teach history. How do we awaken the child to the interest and fascination of this study?"
It is vital that the child read well-written books that give the flow of chronological history. Events do not happen in a vacuum, and a student needs to see what came before in order to understand what happened after.
The student must be allowed adequate leisure to immerse himself in an era of history, to experience the 'feel' of the time period. Let him read biographies of the great and small, and as much source material as you can. If the child cannot read well-written accounts himself, then read aloud to him. Discuss whether this person should have done what he did, what would have happened if he had done differently, and what happened next. These questions will most likely arise from the child himself.
Avoid cut-and-dried opinions on history as much as possible. Textbooks present dry facts and connect the dots so conveniently that the student's work is reduced to "swallow and regurgitate". Resist your temptation as teacher to 'become the textbook' in this way. Remember, we are not "oracles", but fellow pilgrims walking alongside on the journey. Allow the child to feel the tug of conscience that real people must have experienced in this or that conflict.
We must make use of the child's interest and what we find in the community around us as well as following a systematic study of history. Thus, a family living in the Philippines, or Ukraine, or other country, would make use of the culture around them to illustrate the truth that "other peoples are as we are, with a difference, that their history is as ours, with a difference, that they too have their literature and their national life." But even here in the States we have subcultures to explore.
A study of history ought to give the student a vision of the parade of people and events that has brought us to our current era. Have the child tell back a reading (what he got out of it), and then provide a book of time in which to write the names of people and events in order. Another great idea is to make a scroll of illustrations-- have the student draw one picture per reading. This gives the child an individual record of the book that has become a personal experience to him.
[I did this with one of my children with Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe-- neither of which are actual histories, but both give a flavor of the time in which they were written. This particular child really loves drawing, while the other two tend more toward verbal expression. We still treasure her Robinson Crusoe pictures. I had forgotten about this type of timeline, and ought to use the idea again, even with my more 'writing-oriented' students.]
Conducting a study of history in this way will give the child a sense of man's place in history. The student will tend toward the view of history, literature, and geography, as ways in which man has put ideas into play, interacted with the world around him and with other people. Poetry, religious expression and scientific discovery will be set against the background of the historical moment. It will broaden his understanding in a way that facts-and-figures study simply cannot.
[As CM said, "Education is the science of relations." How does one event relate to another? How did an idea give rise to later ideas and actions? What were the consequences? Are we experiencing those consequences even today? Where do we fit in the flow of history?]
"Other aspects of human history will be seen in relationship to each other-- art, music, architecture, governmental forms, laws, social and economic history."
When Mr. Honey and I first began considering homeschooling twelve years ago, this was the first book given us to read, followed closely by the Clarksons' _Educating the Wholehearted Child_ and books by Raymond and Dorothy Moore. We were right on the edge of the explosion in homeschool publishing that took place in the mid- to late-90s, and so got the tail-end of "pioneer" encouragement, if you know what I mean. These books have served us well, and continue to provide guidance through the sea of choices, encouraging us to revel in the Christian liberty that homeschooling ought to celebrate.
On to the narration notes on history (my own comments on the reading are in brackets, Macaulay's own words are in quotation marks, and my paraphrase is written as the regular text):
Our aim in history, as in all subject areas, is honesty and the truth. An education in history ought not to focus on the teacher's own opinion or agenda, but present the ideas that have been acted upon in history, together with their consequences. In this way, we raise up citizens with the ability to discern properly the absolutes that ought to govern any people, and thus make wise decisions concerning government, both personal and civil.
"It is important for the young person to know that there is a great deal to be said on both sides."
[Several years back, my dad and I were having a discussion on the teaching of history. He was helping me to pick out some books for the kids. I will always remember his comment: "the best thing you can say about history is that it is interesting." He was making the point that history is not simple. There is a great deal to admire and deplore on both 'sides' of an issue.]
"A memory feat is not the first aim as we teach history. How do we awaken the child to the interest and fascination of this study?"
It is vital that the child read well-written books that give the flow of chronological history. Events do not happen in a vacuum, and a student needs to see what came before in order to understand what happened after.
The student must be allowed adequate leisure to immerse himself in an era of history, to experience the 'feel' of the time period. Let him read biographies of the great and small, and as much source material as you can. If the child cannot read well-written accounts himself, then read aloud to him. Discuss whether this person should have done what he did, what would have happened if he had done differently, and what happened next. These questions will most likely arise from the child himself.
Avoid cut-and-dried opinions on history as much as possible. Textbooks present dry facts and connect the dots so conveniently that the student's work is reduced to "swallow and regurgitate". Resist your temptation as teacher to 'become the textbook' in this way. Remember, we are not "oracles", but fellow pilgrims walking alongside on the journey. Allow the child to feel the tug of conscience that real people must have experienced in this or that conflict.
We must make use of the child's interest and what we find in the community around us as well as following a systematic study of history. Thus, a family living in the Philippines, or Ukraine, or other country, would make use of the culture around them to illustrate the truth that "other peoples are as we are, with a difference, that their history is as ours, with a difference, that they too have their literature and their national life." But even here in the States we have subcultures to explore.
A study of history ought to give the student a vision of the parade of people and events that has brought us to our current era. Have the child tell back a reading (what he got out of it), and then provide a book of time in which to write the names of people and events in order. Another great idea is to make a scroll of illustrations-- have the student draw one picture per reading. This gives the child an individual record of the book that has become a personal experience to him.
[I did this with one of my children with Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe-- neither of which are actual histories, but both give a flavor of the time in which they were written. This particular child really loves drawing, while the other two tend more toward verbal expression. We still treasure her Robinson Crusoe pictures. I had forgotten about this type of timeline, and ought to use the idea again, even with my more 'writing-oriented' students.]
Conducting a study of history in this way will give the child a sense of man's place in history. The student will tend toward the view of history, literature, and geography, as ways in which man has put ideas into play, interacted with the world around him and with other people. Poetry, religious expression and scientific discovery will be set against the background of the historical moment. It will broaden his understanding in a way that facts-and-figures study simply cannot.
[As CM said, "Education is the science of relations." How does one event relate to another? How did an idea give rise to later ideas and actions? What were the consequences? Are we experiencing those consequences even today? Where do we fit in the flow of history?]
"Other aspects of human history will be seen in relationship to each other-- art, music, architecture, governmental forms, laws, social and economic history."
Thoughts on the New Term
Today is the day. I need to figure out what is going and what is staying for the remaining twelve weeks or so of school. (It is actually more like fourteen or fifteen weeks, but we are taking a couple of breaks in that time.)
I mentioned in an earlier post that I am reading Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's book, _For the Children's Sake_. I plan on narrating out a couple more chapters, too, because evidently I just don't get it. I have sensed that I don't get it for some time now, and had started rereading Macaulay before I found this statement by Cindy, regarding Ambleside Online Years 1 and 2. We aren't in those years anymore, but the spirit of this statement exactly fits my situation:
My job today is to discover and eliminate the superfluous, and purpose to sink our teeth into what is left.
I think one of the reasons I am not willing to leave well enough alone is that we are not having enough communication as a family where ideas are concerned. Thus, I crave "parlor tricks", rather than attentively and serenely tending the children's education.
I think doing more along the lines of Morning Time, a la Cindy, will help us reestablish lines of communication. So I am off to research this. But for now, I leave you Cindy's post on Homeschooling the Freeborn. Much food for thought there.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I am reading Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's book, _For the Children's Sake_. I plan on narrating out a couple more chapters, too, because evidently I just don't get it. I have sensed that I don't get it for some time now, and had started rereading Macaulay before I found this statement by Cindy, regarding Ambleside Online Years 1 and 2. We aren't in those years anymore, but the spirit of this statement exactly fits my situation:
You can read everything you need to read in a 1 to 2 hour period. If it takes longer than that or if you are tempted to add workbooks, you don't get it. Go back and read Susan Schaeffer MacCaulay or Charlotte's Original Series.
The hardest thing about the liberal arts or a Charlotte Mason education is: not adding the superfluous in order to make your mom feel better.
My job today is to discover and eliminate the superfluous, and purpose to sink our teeth into what is left.
I think one of the reasons I am not willing to leave well enough alone is that we are not having enough communication as a family where ideas are concerned. Thus, I crave "parlor tricks", rather than attentively and serenely tending the children's education.
I think doing more along the lines of Morning Time, a la Cindy, will help us reestablish lines of communication. So I am off to research this. But for now, I leave you Cindy's post on Homeschooling the Freeborn. Much food for thought there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)