Between the subjects

One of the things I love about homeschooling is the way the boundaries between subjects don't need to exist at all. I know that many schools pride themselves on making "cross-curricular connections," but those are more like threads connecting otherwise discrete areas. As homeschoolers we are free to dwell for months in the spaces between the subjects.

This fall has been a case in point for Fiona. She's been learning about ... how does one describe it when it isn't a traditional subject area? ... learning about where math, art and nature overlap.

I think perhaps the thread of discovery that led us into this playground was the stylized form of doodling called zentangles. This was clearly a form of creative precision that appealed to Fiona: the fine lines, the iterations, the patterns and conventions, the interesting figure-ground relationships.

And then, suddenly there was Vi Hart and her quirky doodling in (and about!) math class. Fiona has spent hours watching these videos over and over, experimenting with the tricks and techniques. Hexaflexagons, binary trees, Fibonacci spirals, doodling music, she's loved all of Hart's stuff.

And that brought us to October, when art class began. Last year's classes focused on the alphabet and on place: our community, the natural world we treasure, and letters, and words, and art that combined them all. But this year's series of workshops, wonder of wonders, is about geometric patterns in nature and art.

How perfect for this girl at this moment in her life!

Right from the first class drawing compasses were part of the exercises. Mandalas made with concentric circles. Lines made from circles. Equilateral triangles made from circles. Squares made from circles. Fibonacci spirals made from squares and circles.

As with most homeschoolers' classes, this one is multi-age and multi-level. The instructor is amazing at meeting the needs of barely-5-year-olds, and even some of their younger siblings, as well as challenging the 9- to 11-year-olds.

Fiona is neat to watch socially in the class. She enjoys talking to the adults -- she chats away with the art teacher and the homeschool liaison teacher genuinely and comfortably as if they are good friends, and they afford her the same respect and warmth. She and the 11-year-old are at similar academic levels and are friends from way back so they banter back and forth about science, spelling, vocabulary, music, books and math. She enjoys the company of one lovely girl who is almost exactly her age; they often hang out after class for an afternoon. But her favourite classmate to spend time with is a 6-year-old. And it's not a doting babysitter-like arrangement. She doesn't play with this kid because she thinks she's cute or because she enjoys being a leader who is bigger and older and more capable. She plays with her simply because they're really good friends. She really really likes J. as a person.

Art class is outdoors sometimes too. We walk to and from the lakeshore, or along the creek, or along the streets of the quiet neighbourhoods near the school. The kids enjoy the less structured time, the physical outlet of getting themselves somewhere on their own two feet and the chance to socialize. Along the way they're learning to see the patterns in nature, collecting specimens and samples, building ephemeral art.

I love ephemeral art. We have a friend living nearby who makes a living at sand and snow sculpture. I admit to at first thinking it was kind of gimmicky, a sort of festival competition endeavour designed to pull in tourists and make a spectacle. But I see it differently now that I've watched his work evolve, and seen Andy Goldsworthy's work, and grown older and more comfortable with impermanence myself. For kids, I think ephemeral art lowers the stakes: there's no need to strive for perfection if you know it will wither or blow away. Just enjoy the process, and appreciate your work for as long as it lasts, and that's all. What wonderful therapy for perfectionists!

I was mystified a year or so ago when Fiona announced that architecture is something she could see herself doing as a career. Mystified because she had never expressed much interest in building toys like Lego or Knex. Mystified because she had never been rapt over cranes or framing or cement trucks as I assumed budding little architects would be. But she loves the design aspect of architecture, especially spare, clean contemporary architecture. She doesn't see many clean modern lines in our little hewn-log corner of the world, but she loves images of the sexy towers in Dubai, and of achingly spare glass-and-rice-paper rooms in Kyoto apartments.

Further, she has fallen in love with contemporary design. An IKEA catalogue was her gateway drug. Now she's browsing design blogs and awards. Who knows where it will all go. At this point I'm avoiding labelling and categorizing her interests as much as I can. Although a certain amount of labelling is helpful to her in finding resources and talking about her interests, I think it is wonderful the way she is comfortable inhabiting the overlapping space shared between various subjects.

Fiona's Schedule

The older kids now have timetables for school. Fiona wanted one too. So she sat down with me and we came up with something.

First we put in the out-of-home things she has to attend. Summit Strings and the trip to Nelson she has to do because she's too young to be left home alone. Group class is on Wednesdays after school. We put in lunch and supper. We blocked in some time for practicing or violin lesson every day.

And then she wanted to put in "school." She has three areas this year in which she is doing structured curricular work: math, science and social studies. So we set aside one or two hour-long blocks on Monday through Friday to give her a chance to work on those areas. Then we threw in a couple of blocks of scheduled physical activity to round things out.

She is absolutely thrilled to have me facilitating structured learning with her. I'm making an effort to steer her away from the curricular stuff as much as I can. She is often just as keen to go on a mushroom hunt or make soap or work through playful engineering challenges or read some historical fiction. But then later in the day she'll announce that we should do some science workbook or math as well. She almost never does two full hours of bookwork, but she often likes to touch on two or three subject areas for 15 or 20 minutes. The schedule is a guide, not a rule. We use it when it suits her, but if something more enticing comes up she is flexible enough to discard it cheerfully. She does like her curriculum, though!

When we finish the schedule for the day she is often at loose ends. "What can I do now?" she asks. I worried that the structure was turning her into a kid who was dependent on others for direction, but it's not really that. She's just as good at finding things to do on her own as she ever was; it's just that with no at-home siblings during the day rather than the three she was used to, she misses the social energy and interaction. She's a bit more dependent on me for interaction, and it's no wonder, I suppose. She's a sociable kid who now has only one person to socialize with for a few hours each day.

It's somewhat frightening to see how much she is capable of with this kind of active facilitation available to her. It's easy to feel guilty about giving her so little one-on-one up until this point, when I see how eagerly she is gobbling it up and enjoying the learning. (Although I also know that simply being around her older siblings and the rest of us and our busy lives was immeasurably good for her too. My guilt is kept at bay by that thought.) In the past month she's done half of the Grade 6 Singapore Primary Math curriculum. She's moving steadily through the 7th grade BC science curriculum, and through a Canadian history curriculum intended for older kids as well. We've done tons of enrichment learning around each of these, so it definitely doesn't feel like a narrow book-learning-only trajectory. She's getting lots of context and lots of chance to explore rabbit trails that pique her interest.

And then there's all the other stuff. She's run a race, learned to ride basic "skinnies" and do bunny-hops on a mountain bike, been on that wonderful field trip to Fort Steele, attended the local Harvest Festival, begun learning to use the sewing machine, learned to hand-sew stuffed toys, been on hikes and nature walks, started a new Handel Sonata on violin, prepared an entire family dinner on her own, obsessed over Dr. Who Season 5 episodes, written on her blog, read books, played with our adorable kitten, done her usual amazing housekeeping blitzes.

She thriving, I'd say. Which makes me very happy, because I was worried she'd be a little miserable being left out of the whole school thing.

Fiona's Learning Plan 2011-2012

She's my only full-time homeschooler this year, and gosh, is she every loving that! She would also love to attend school in the flexible part-time way that Erin did for three years, and that Noah is doing this year, but that's not going to work easily until Grade 10, when teaching becomes subject-oriented rather than cross-curricular and part-time enrolment is officially allowed. She recognizes that elementary school is not going to be a good fit for her, and so she is happy to continue homeschooling. And she is really enjoying the prospect of getting more of my time and energy this year.

For those readers who are not familiar with our planning process, please do not be intimidated or confused by the organized, schoolish, subject-by-subject nature of this plan as written. What actually happens is that we go out for lunch and I ask Fiona to talk about how she would like to prioritize energy, time and money this year to support her learning. I listen to and jot down whatever she says. Whatever she says. If she runs out of things to talk about I might remind her of goals or ambitions she's expressed in the recent past, and activities and areas of learning that she has enjoyed and/or deemed important in the past. I jot down everything she comes up with, and then we briefly talk about various ways to facilitate those things and how they might be implemented, and what kind of resources and support she wants, if any.

This particular kid likes organized, sequential, school-like resources and loves to be busy with things that are tangibly about learning. It hasn't always been that way, and her siblings certainly haven't always chosen such routes. But in her case, at this age, she really likes curriculum materials! She was using only a math program 8 months ago, but last spring added a science program and is now keen to add programs for history and geography. On the surface the plan that follows sure doesn't look like it's for an unschooler, but it is: the choice to adopt structured materials is all hers.

After our preliminary meeting I go through all my notes and organize things in a subject-oriented way that makes sense to our supervising teachers and makes it easy to document. I do some research, often with her help, into the particular way we might realize her goals, and we revise the plan as appropriate. Eventually we take this draft in to our DL program teachers and explain it, asking them to order the resources we'd like to procure (within the learning allowance budget we're allocated) and talking about how we'll document what she's doing. This latter issue is easy Fiona's case: she loves creating projects and worksheets and bringing them in to show off to her DL teacher, and she is also happy to talk about the things that have been interesting to her recently. Compared to my reserved elder children she is a dream as a DL student.

Here is our first draft of her Learning Plan for this year:

Math

Will continue with Challenge Math, alternating with  Singapore 6A/6B as desired. Consider Singapore New Syllabus Math (workbook-based!) if 6B is completed this year.

Science

Really enjoyed the level 6 school science textbook she used last spring. Would like to continue this program and will order BC Science 7 textbook and workbook. Wants to do more astronomy. Resources: "365 Starry Nights" by Chet Raymo, Starwalk for iPad, "Nightwatch" by Terence Dickinson, Chuck's Dobsonian telescope. May explore RealScience4Kids Chemistry Level 1. Would enjoy hands-on chemistry like soap-making, bath bombs. Will continue to explore kitchen science with Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking."

Social Studies

Donna Ward workbooks: "Courage and Conquest," "Canadian Geography, Province by Province." Visit to Montreal in November. Three-day field trip / camp at Fort Steele historical site with various workshops: end of September. DVD series: "Canada: A People's History." "The Story of Canada" and "The Kids History of Canada" reference texts.

PE

Sufferfest Kids' Race. Hiking, kayaking, geocaching. School downhill ski program (February) and recreational skiing. Community soccer. Would like swim classes but barring that would go for a few private lessons if possible, plus recreational swimming. Goal of swimming to Bigelow Bay dock on her own (note: already accomplished!). Meal planning -- will help making siblings' school lunches, occasional preparation on her own of a complete family dinner.

Languaging

Continue work on cursive, signature, etc.. Reading... Novels, Muse magazine. Would like to participate in the school's Arts and Writers festival again this year. Will continue blogging, particularly by contributing to a school district wordpress blog which will comprise our homeschooling documentation for the year.

Critical Thinking

Would like to read and discuss "Nibbling on Einstein's Brain" and " The Philosophy Files."

Second Language

Possibly interested in French... Has access to Rosetta Stone. May be able to use / learn some French phrases during Montreal visit. Some continuing interest in Japanese.

Creativity

Will continue with violin lessons and group classes. Would love the opportunity to participate in a string quartet or chamber music if possible. Will be part of the Community ABC Homeschoolers' Art Project if it happens. Would love more drama experience -- depending on availability in the community. Wants to take pottery classes once they start in October or November. Will continue to explore fibre crafts. Would like to learn to use the sewing machine.

Children and computer use

Written in response to a mom of a 5-month-old who was asking for advice on how much and how early to encourage computer use by her child as she grows up:

I love what technology does for us, but here's the thing: its pull is relentless. There is no way bright kids today with computer-literate parents and even basic technology in the home will not grow up frightenly capable with computers. What I fear they may lack is the sense of connection to the real. I don't mean this in a spooky Ender's-Game-like sense of living a virtual life. I mean that I think that humans are hard-wired to learn from direct experience with the physical world, and that if especially when they're young (say, under 12 or so) they don't get copious experience with the direct consequences of their actions they will not develop fully as empathetic, responsible, moral beings. So I think it is pretty cool to play with virtual farms and learn how protecting a breeding stock of poultry will promote strong meat and egg production over the years. But I think that this is not nearly a substitute for incubating eggs in your laundry room, carefully monitoring the heat lamp to nurture those chicks through their tender first weeks, hauling water out to the henhouse twice a day in the depths of winter, and cooking the eggs and meat you harvest. (I realize this is just an example: most urban kids won't have the opportunity to raise hens like mine have. But I hope you get my point.) In the real world if you mess up you don't can't click "Menu>>New Game" and your characters don't automatically respawn after 20 seconds. Your mess-ups result in dead chicks, or time-consuming and exhausting damage-control, or stress on relationships and loss of trust that needs work to be put to rights.

It's tempting to think that you can have both: the clean and easy virtual experience and the chicken-poop-on-your-boots type. And I do think you can. I'm trying to create a balance for my kids that allows them to have both. But what I've seen over the years is that the virtual, disconnected-from-the-real-world experiences have much the greater attraction for kids (and, I confess, for parents) because they're so tidy and readily available and easy and low-risk. And so in keeping a balance for my kids I've found that my parental effort needs to favour the real-world experiences. I need to work very hard to keep my kids engaged in the dirty, messy, risky, hard-working business of real life, and I need to do absolutely no facilitation at all, and if anything sometimes create obstacles, concerning their engagement with the virtual. When I do that the balance seems to come out about right.

The drive to learn

"Help me understand about unschooling. I know kids learn to talk and walk with no overt teaching but they learn by example, I think these are more of a biological drive in the human being. I am not sure learning Pi falls under the same category."


If you want to look at it from a "biological imperative" standpoint, I think you can definitely lump learning about pi into it. I think human beings are programmed to learn to walk and talk, but I think another thing that sets us apart from most of the rest of the animal kingdom is that we are programmed to learn from others. Humans have memes as well as genes: bodies of knowledge that are passed along by the culture that surrounds us. And I'm not talking about school-ish learning here. I'm talking about the sort of learning that in the distant past let hunter-gatherer kids know which plants near where they lived were safe to eat, how to fashion a weapon, how to build a shelter. We are hard-wired for learning. These days the things children are driven to learn are less of the "building a shelter" type and more of the "swapping graphics cards" or "calculating interest charges on a loan" type. We are hard-wired to learn whatever is necessary in our particular environment for becoming a productive, capable member of our society.

Unschooling doesn't mean no formal learning: it just means no uninvited teaching. Much of an unschooler's learning may be informal, but if they want formal structure to their learning that's totally cool. My unschooled 11-year-old is currently getting up every morning to sit down with a high school math textbook and do work with pencil and paper to master it. She has decided that higher math is likely to be useful to her, so she wants to learn it. My 14-year-old son who until recently had nothing you could call handwriting gradually discovered that there were a few occasions in real life when it was helpful to be able to write neatly and efficiently with a pen. Since real life wasn't giving him enough practice to get good at it, he set to work making himself practice on a daily basis, and now has a neat legible written script.

Proving learning to an overseeing body hasn't been a problem for us. My kids are learning like crazy, and progress is well-nigh inevitable. It isn't necessarily linear and steady, but over the long term, like a school term or two, there's always stuff I can point to as evidence.

I've also not found that my kids need much if any prodding to challenge themselves. Occasionally (rarely) they have needed some substantial support from me in following through on their desire to challenge themselves. But for the most part when they know that they are fully in charge of their own learning their ambition and motivation rises up and propel them forward. In fact they often challenge themselves far more than I would ever have thought of expecting of them. 

Show your work

On the way to Calgary last week Noah was doing some math work. He was in a good mood and things were going well. He finds his current textbook (MathPower9) to be okay for the most part. It's rife with practice exercises, most of which we skip, but they're there in case he stalls for a bit. The math is logically presented and there's a fair bit of challenge. Much of it is review for Noah, but he's enjoying being systematic with his math work and filling his gaps.

But the textbook is made for classroom use and it's got a fair number of silly "working with a group" and "learning to solve problems together" activity sidebars. We normally ignore all the ancillary stuff.

So in the middle of one of these "learning to solve problems" pages Noah pulled out an puzzle problem to solve algebraically ... a number which, if thirteen is added to it and the result cubed and divided by three will equal half of itself times seventeen, or something like that. He formulated the algebraic equation, solved the problem and that was that.

And then he noticed the guidance preceding the actual problem, which said "formulate a strategy, test your strategy, evaluate the results, revise your strategy" and asked students to "create a flow chart to show your problem-solving process."

He quickly scrawled a flowchart in his notebook as a parody of the approach. It went like this:



which I thought showed off Noah's sense of humour and general-purpose mocking skills very nicely indeed. "I got the right answer. Isn't that enough?"

Of back burners

It was gone.

Now it has returned.

The interest in math. She is barrelling ahead in her Singapore book again, easily internalizing things that I expected a child so young would really struggle with. The efficiency of her learning still surprises me. She's excited to be mastering new concepts and algorithms, to be filling in pages, starting new sections, seeing her progress through the program. But that's not what this post is about. This post is really about three or four months of Fiona not doing math.

Blogs and on-line communities present a very distorted view of homeschooling. You frequently see only the "best of". You don't see the long stretches of nothing. For three or four months Fiona's interest in math has been negligible. For more than a hundred days over the past few months I could have posted "another day of no math." But I didn't. Why not? Because I wasn't worried so I didn't feel the need to speculate about what was going on. Because it's hard to take cute photos of a kid "not doing math." Because I was just not struck by the urge to write about how she had barely touched a pencil since Hallowe'en.

But today, recognizing again how easy it is to inadvertently present a distorted image of homeschooling on-line, I am posting this cute picture but instead choosing to inform everyone of the many many recent days when Fiona did not do any math at all. The scene above is a change from what has been our recent "normal."

Why do kids go through phases like this, when they suddenly lose interest? I think there are two main reasons. The first is that they recognize that they're not as ready as they'd like to be for what's next in their learning. The second is that they've got something else they're busy learning that is taking precedence. I can see that Fiona has struggled a little with the multi-step word problems Singapore introduces at this level; the bar-diagram method of pre-algebraic problem-solving for these sorts of problems just doesn't sit well with her yet. And there's no doubt that piano is where her intellectual drive has been flowing. This time it's been easy for me to see why math shifted onto the back burner for a while.

However it's not always clear to me what the reasons are. Not at the time. Sometimes I only see it in retrospect, because during the loss of interest phase the stuff that's instead come to the front burner hasn't necessarily revealed itself yet. But I now, after years of watching children learn, know it's cooking. I've seen it enough times -- several months of aimlessness and loss of apparent interest followed by a sudden bursting forth of new abilities, motivation and productivity. I don't doubt it any more.

Adolescence rant

Copied & pasted from a discussion board where it was being argued that young adults from 18-25 ought to be cut a little slack by the justice system when they do stupid things like engage in credit card fraud -- because science has shown that their frontal cortexes are still developing. "There is good reason why we now consider adolescence to last a dozen or more years," it was argued. "It's because the brain is still maturing all that time."

The prolongation of adolescence has nothing to do with knowledge of brain maturity and everything to do with keeping inexpensive pools of labour out of the workforce by maximizing educational and economic dependency. As we expect less and less of our young people, they live down to our expectations. Yes, most 18-year-olds are immature and irresponsible -- because we haven't given them to fodder of life experiences, freedom, autonomy, meaningful involvement in family and community life and other forms of responsibility that they need as catalysts for the development of maturity. We treat them like children far too long. I'm not putting the blame on parents here so much as on society. We don't let teens make decisions for themselves, live self-sufficiently, drive, sign legal documents, travel, get married, leave school, drink alcohol, have sex, work during certain hours of the day, vote ...

Robert Epstein and John Taylor Gatto have a lot of interesting historical perspectives on adolescence. It is indeed a relatively recent invention -- and they make a very good case that it is an ill-conceived social construct that contributes to the problem it purports to solve, that of immaturity.

The real agenda is economic, as it is for most things. The business world has traditionally wanted compliant willing workers who have been trained through years of schooling to conform. Trade unions have traditionally sought to prevent young people from entering the work force because they put a downward pressure on wages. On this one issue they have been united -- keep young people out of the work force and apart from the real workings of society.

I agree that the brain continues to develop into adulthood. But it continues to develop and change throughout adulthood as well. At some point we have to afford our citizens freedom and responsibility as full members of society. Shifting that age of majority later in the teens and well up into the 20's will save a few immature individuals from the consequences of their irresponsible choices for a few more years. Is it worth the cost to the rest of our young people -- infantilizing them far beyond the age when it is healthy for them.

Neurophysiological development is not the explanation for immaturity. No doubt my 10-year-old has the neurophysiology of a 10-year-old -- but she's not stealing, engaging in reckless behaviour or making other stupid choices. Neither are my 12 or 15-year-olds. Maturity is something rather different from neurophysiology, and in my opinion we're setting kids up for arrested moral development if we assume they're the same thing. At some point we have to start giving young people responsibility -- including the responsibility of living with the repercussions of their mistakes. They need responsibility as a catalyst for the development of maturity -- and a few more years of pre-frontal-cortex synapse development alone won't give it to them.

Extending patterns

Fiona and I were waiting for Sophie's Aikido class to finish. We were hanging out in the van. She had brought along her math but after a couple of minutes decided she didn't want to do any more of that, but would like to do some "different math." On a paper I drew pictures:

square, triangle, circle, triangle, square, _____

She easily drew a triangle to continue the pattern. We used to play games like this with pattern blocks. No big deal. I decided to up the ante. I gave her:

5, 7, 9, 11, ___

which she got easily. Told me it was too easy, it was just odd numbers, and could she please have something harder. Next came:

102, 213, 324, 435, ___

and she got that one too. I was sure of stumping her with:

1/2, 1, 2, 4, ___

but she examined it for a minute, said "I can't explain it, but it's 8." I had failed to outwit her again, and she thought this was hilarious. So in a final attempt to challenge her I wrote out:

0, 1, 3, 6, 10, ___

and she looked at it for about 5 seconds and said "oh! it just steps up and up!" and laughed and told me the next one was 15. I put my face in my hands and wailed aloud about my inability to fool her. She laughed and laughed until she was giddy.

I just love it when kids can take a rudimentary understanding of something, and extend and extend their learning, moving from what they know into what they don't know with enthusiasm, pushing the envelope bigger and wider with every new challenge.

Schools and rules

A Grade 6 class is expected to read a book of their choice per week at home independently and submit a book report for each. They should read a range of genres. Multiple books from the same series are not acceptable. Non-fiction books are not acceptable. The aim of this home reading program can only be inferred. Presumably it is to encourage students to read regularly, to enjoy reading, to broaden their exposure to authors, styles and genres. Book reports are to likely to gauge comprehension and provide proof that the book has actually been read.

A particular student has chosen "The DaVinci Code" as his current novel. He is not a voracious reader, but is a strong enough reader that he enjoys the book and the challenge it presents. But the book is many times longer and more complex than the books his classmates are typically reading. He does not want to choose lightweight books instead or in addition to this one. He would like to continue challenging himself with The DaVinci Code over the longer term, and instead of weekly book reports, submit weekly summaries of chapters he has read. He says that if he's forced to abandon DC and pick up shorter, less challenging books that he's not currently interested in, he simply won't do the reading and reports. He's happy with DC and the challenge it's giving him, and wants a compromise.

Many parents on the message board where this issue was being discussed seem to feel that the rules given by the teacher are hard and fast, and it would be disrespectful and defiant to even ask for a compromise. "You can't tell your boss that you don't like the work so you won't do it," they say. "Children shouldn't grow up believing that the rules don't have to apply to them." They also believe that this is not a place for a parent to support and facilitate the request for a compromise. "Any kid old enough to understand The DaVinci Code is old enough to deal with this himself." Or "I would tell my kid to buck up and get with the program. The school should not have to bend their rules because some kid thinks he has a better idea." Other parents suggest "School is a kid's job. He has to do the work."

I am left shaking my head in bewilderment. School cannot be likened to a job. When you work for an employer, the work you do is for your employer's benefit. In exchange you are given a salary which compensates you for doing work for your employer's benefit. It's an economy. And you have choice. If you find the work is making you miserable, you can seek a new job. You're presumably an adult and have control over your life and your choices, as well as the maturity and experience to make tough decisions.

When you work at school, the work is for your benefit -- to educate you. No money changes hands because the benefit (supposedly!) accrues to you. And most kids have zero choice. If school is making them miserable they can't quit and find another way to learn. They're also young, inexperienced and immature.

So the situations are different in fundamental ways. There are, in my opinion, a number of very good reasons why the school should be the party that is flexible and accommodating in situations like this.

I also bristle at the suggestion that reading level can be equated with social-emotional maturity. Fiona, for example, has quite a lot of social-emotional maturity for her age. She is gracious, respectful and assertive. But I am quite sure that now that she is (brag!) reading at a Grade 4 level, her social-emotional maturity still does not keep up with her reading level. No matter how you slice it she is not a 9-year-old. When I think back to Erin the asynchronicity was extremely stark. She had been reading her way through books at the Harry Potter level and beyond for a full four years before she had the confidence and maturity to open her mouth and speak to an adult she didn't know intimately.

For the record, in the scenario I describe the teacher has not yet been approached. It is certainly possible that the teacher will be receptive to the compromise the boy is suggesting -- I hope that's the case. What dumbfounded me was the resounding consensus among most parents contributing to the discussion that the child's role is to toe the line, even when the line makes him miserable and he has a compromise to suggest which it seems is likely in keeping with the spirit, if not the letter, of the rule.

It seems that most parents have bought the premise that children serve the curriculum rather than the other way around. I think they've got it totally backwards.

Edited to add: A follow-up post from the mom makes it clear that the teacher has been wonderfully accommodating. She would love the boy to read The DaVinci Code and report based on that. The requirement that he read from a variety of genres is one made with a year-long view, not week by week. I'm not surprised that the teacher has been flexible; I've seen lots of great examples of flexibility in the school system. What surprises me still is the response of so many parents to the original dilemma as presented.

Origami brilliance and learning styles

Sophie really enjoys origami. It's been an on-and-off interest, but when it's on she's self-taught and self-motivated. For her birthday last year we gave her some really nice origami paper and a fantastic (though very challenging!) book of instructions. She hasn't done a whole lot with it, but she's tried a few. And lately she's been experimenting.

Today she showed me the creations in this photo. "Neat!" I said. A hollow square-pyramidal base and a cap to match. Pretty nifty. I figured she'd followed instructions out of that book.

Then she explained that she made up these folded shapes herself. My jaw dropped. From what? I asked. Out of her head, she said. I told her I was especially impressed with the base. She said that actually it was the top that had taken her the most time to work out. So that's what she'd been doing quietly in a corner of the living room for an hour or more.

I have such a hard time figuring out learning styles. Neither I nor my kids seem to fit neatly into any particular category. I did a long, involved right-brain/left-brain quiz on-line a few years ago and came out totally evenly matched. Maybe my kids take after me somewhat. Gradually I've figured that Erin is a strong visual learner (even though she lagged for a long long time in her music reading ability, learns music incredibly easily by ear and loved readalouds well into the tween years). And Noah is on balance a visual-spatial guy (even though he claims to dislike higher math and has an incredible ear for music). But Sophie is especially puzzling. So much about her seems auditory-sequential ... but then she blows me away with something like this, or with her amazing facility with understanding diagrammatic instructions for string figures or figuring out how knitting instructions create a 3-dimensional product.

So I give up. Maybe my family defies organization into categorical boxes of any sort. Oh well, we get along okay anyway.

Respect for authority

That's Noah with his viola master class teacher from SVI. It was important to him that he arrange photo-ops with his various favourite teachers from this summer. He really likes his teachers! As I've mentioned, Noah is often a favourite of teachers when he ends up in a group learning situation. He's diligent, focused, cheerful and hard-working, and his manner is sensitive and humble.

Once in a while someone asks "but if a kid doesn't go to school, how will he learn to listen to authority figures and obey rules?"

There are two types of responses I can give to this. The first response is the defensive one. I pull out photos like this one and explain how my kids get lots of experience in group situations and invariably their teachers love them. I point out that they behave beautifully in classes and have been able to sit quiet as mice through chamber music concerts since they were two. They get experience creating and obeying rules that are meaningful to them and their family, and they experience social rules when they're out and about in the real world, which is plenty. And that's all true, but the more I think about it, it sort of misses the truth about respect.

The second type of response is to critically examine the assumptions behind the question. I think there are some very mistaken assumptions there. The question is really more about obedience than respect. The assumption seems to be that respect is a behaviour which encompasses obedience and "doing what is expected", and that the only reason an adult in a position of authority would be respected is because the child had experience with obedient patterns of behaviour in a wide range of circumstances.

I don't believe respect is a behaviour that is learned through repeated practice. I believe that respect is a moral understanding that springs from empathy. In other words it comes from a a strongly-rooted set of moral values, not repetitive behaviour. And strongly grounded values are of course best learned through consistent caring teaching within the family ... rather than the rather random, capricious examples set in institutional settings. I believe that people who value others' feelings and who have guided experience with viewing the world from others' perspectives will naturally want to behave in a respectful manner. My children listen to their parents because their parents listen to them. My children behave well in classes, concerts, playgroups and meetings because they care about how their behaviour can support or undermine the experience and enjoyment of others. Yeah, okay, and it helps that they're too shy to do anything that would draw attention to themselves.

On fish and ponds of varying proportions

An interesting question to ponder. Do your kids prefer to be big fish in small ponds, small fish in big ponds, or some other combination? How about you?

Erin is currently a very big fish in a very small pond. She enjoys this, but also finds herself very limited by it. There's the possibility of being a sort of medium fish in a big pond -- the challenge option, which would likely require living away from home. I'm speaking here of course of music, which is her all-consuming passion at this point. Not sure which she'll choose, and unfortunately I think she's really too young for such a decision, but it'll likely have to be made within a year or so.

Noah will definitely prefer to be a small fish in a big pond, though he's at least three or four years from having to find a bigger musical pond. As a violist he likes being in the midst of great things, but not the out-front player. It's the same in other areas; he'd rather be in an aikido class or soccer program where the others are working hard and taking it all seriously, but he likes to be in the top 25%, not the top 1%.

Sophie I'm not really sure. I think she's more a medium fish small pond kind of person. She's a dabbler who likes to try different things and do reasonably well but isn't driven to the kind of perfectionism that her older siblings are. But I feel like there's a shift in maturity that's getting ready to take root in her, and she may emerge with a new self-concept that changes all this. We'll see.

Fiona might turn out to be our big fish big pond kid. She's much more comfortable with the spotlight than the others and she is driven to achieve, as much as is possible for a five-year-old. Time will tell!

Their mother is more comfortable as a big fish in a small pond, but likes to be in the reeds near the bottom of the pond where only people who are really looking can see her bigness lurking there.

Contracting out parenting

Dear parent who asking for help finding bike-riding lessons for your 7-year-old:

There's a tendency these days to think that by contracting out what used to be basic childhood learning to 'professionals' who specialize in it we're giving our kids a better experience. Learning to swim, cook, sew, stay home alone, ride a bike, throw and catch a ball, grow a garden, develop empathy, build a go-kart, you name it and there are 'experts' offering classes and parents willing to sign their kids up.

I think this trend is a sad one, because it undermines confidence and interrupts the flow of knowledge through the generations. It undermines both parental confidence ("how can I possibly teach my child to do ____ if it's so complicated that people are paying experts to do it?") and child confidence ("mom and dad don't believe I can learn this without specialized help"). It produces a new generation of people who believe they won't be able to pass these skills onto their own kids, because they were taught by specialists themselves. And also, of course, it contributes to the rat-race of over-scheduled kids and double-income cash-strapped parents, all of which reduces the amount of time parents and kids have to spend together.

So here's my plea -- teach your own kid to ride a bike. I know you've tried. You're not done yet. Keep trying. Draw on the wisdom of other parents rather than the supposed expertise of experts. Trust that he will learn. Trust that you can help him. Spend the time with him. Make it a family event to go off to the schoolyard three evenings a week with daddy in tow so that you have the manpower to help the trike-sibling too. Stop for popsicles on the way home to make a special ritual. Create a memory of "that summer when you learned to ride a two-wheeler -- remember all those popsicles! Wasn't that fun!?" Do it with joy, trust, confidence, pleasure and time together with your child.

Evolution of a Twinkle

I wrote before about Fiona's piano experimentation, which is impressive in an absolute sense, but what has fascinated me most is how it illustrates a playful learning curve so beautifully. It's a learning curve I can hear ... and notice, and document. So here's how it's gone.

Melody in C: Since she was quite little, Fiona's been able to 'sound out' the melody of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. At first she wanted to play it in A, because that's the key of the violin, but that was confusing because of the 'black notes', so I suggested C as an easier starting place.

Melody with simplified chords, in C: She wanted to play "hands together", so I taught her a C-E-G triad, a C-F-A triad, and an F-G second, with which to accompany the Twinkle. I didn't tell her which chord to play when... that she figured out by ear.

Melody with three-note-chords, in C: Because I wanted to encourage Sophie to figure out the Alberti bass pattern, I gave the girls a B-F-G chord (instead of the F-G).

Other melodies with 3-note chords, in C: Next came "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and a few others. Accompaniment chords fitted with the melodies by ear.

Alberti bass pattern in C: She worked out how to turn each chord into an Alberti bass pattern (i.e. a three-note chord became a set of four eighth-notes played in the order low-high-middle-high).

Twinkle melody with Alberti bass pattern in C: Soon she had the melody paired up with the new left hand pattern.

Modal melody with Alberti bass: Now she moved the whole thing into different modes by starting on different white notes.

a Minor melody with Alberti bass: She figured out how to use the Aeolian mode (natural minor) plus a G# to put the piece into a minor key

C Major Rhythmic variation A with Alberti bass: This is the one I recorded last week.

Dissonant versions of the above: She began playing around doing things 'wrong' on purpose, playing the version above, but with one hand playing a half or whole step above the other.

Novel rhythmic variations: Instead of the standard Suzuki rhythmic variations, she began playing her own, like "Canada Canada Stop Stop" and others.

Transpositions to different major keys: G major, then F major, then A major.

Transpositions to different minor keys: d minor and e minor

What blows me away is how logical the sequence here has been. She has bumped up the level of challenge in such sensible ways. G major and F major are the next-easiest major keys after C. How did she know? The other thing I love is the playful diversions into things that are intentionally 'wrong' (like the dissonant version). This is such a hallmark of self-directed mastery learning ... learn the rules, and then have fun breaking them, so that you experience the results of not following them and really understand why they're there. Learning is such a fascinating thing.

A rest is as good as a change

Fiona took the better part of a week off practicing when she broke her collarbone. Then she had a week of "takin' it easy," playing mostly easy review stuff in the middle of the bow. Then about 10 days ago, mostly healed and totally pain-free, she got busy on the violin in a big way again, and it was as if she'd been learning all through her break, with the learning just waiting to be realized.

This is why I am not a big fan of "hundred day clubs," whereby children try to practice for a hundred consecutive days, often many times over, come hell or high water. I think that while daily practicing is a great goal to hold in mind, it shouldn't take precedence over illness, injury, relaxing in a hotel room or playing with cousins at a family reunion. Or over just taking a couple of days off to come back at things in a refreshed state of mind. Fiona was clearly integrating some important violin learning during her 'break,' and she obviously came back to it refreshed and enthusiastic. At her first proper lesson after the injury she was given a list of all her previous repertoire, divided up into groups for daily review work; I have never seen a kid so excited about digging into review groups!

Anyway, things are clicking. Her left hand is lovely, her tone and articulation clearer, and as of tonight it looks like she has a usable vibrato. It's subtler and more musical than it was before the break, it's easy for her to throw in, even on 4th finger, and it no longer necessitates her making her vibrato face -- in other words, like everything else, it's getting easier.

The other marker of ease is in her review repertoire. The two long Minuets at the end of Book 2, with their multiple repeats, trios and da capos, have always exceeded her 5-year-old stamina. Back when she was polishing the Boccherini and Beethoven Minuets, I used to ask her every day "do you think this is the day you'll have enough energy to play the da capo?" She would say "maybe," but then when she got to the end of the trio she'd sigh, sit down and say "maybe tomorrow." I eventually stopped asking. But first time she played these pieces after the break she played all the repeats and the da capo and it wasn't until I pointed out that she'd done the whole piece in one go for the first time ever that she even thought about it. "It's not that long!" she exclaimed. "I didn't even notice I was doing the whole thing!"

Boo for breaks of bones, but hurray for occasional short breaks from violin.

Good day at the dojo

Sometimes Noah loves Aikido, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he even harbours fleeting regrets that he ever started it. That's because most of the Aikido students he knows seem to be committed for the long term, and he feels like he needs to be similarly committed. I remind him that a number of students have dropped off the radar. But, well, he feels like he's started it, and he would not want to give up on this pursuit that he's obviously doing well at. He feels like he ought to keep going, and when he's there, he quite enjoys it. But sometimes when it comes time to go he can think of a few other things he'd rather do.

Today he really truly loved it. He paid really close attention to all the details of instructions and demonstrations and tried extra hard to apply all his observations. He felt good about himself because he did everything almost perfectly.

I wonder if he's feeling a little more comfortable about sticking with Aikido because of experiencing how belt tests are handled. A couple of weeks ago at the spring gasshuku (seminar), a whole lot of white, yellow and orange belt kids took part in the classes, activities and routines of the day. Finally at the end of the day it was time to do belt testing.

The sensei called forward all the white belts (there were six or eight of them). They performed a number of skills and moves, as a group, repetitively, based on verbal instructions in Japanese. After four or five minutes, they were dismissed and took their seats at the back of the dojo. The half dozen yellow belts were called forward. They went through a similar, though slightly more advanced, set of skills. Finally the orange belts did their skills. Some of the kids hadn't fully learned the skills they were being asked for, or weren't sure what they were being asked to do. They were encouraged to "watch the others ... and just try something, do your best." It was all quite low-key. The two senseis sat and observed the kids quietly without comment.

When it was all over the students were all called forward one by one to receive a special participation certificate for the all-day gasshuku. Finally one last yellow belt boy was called forward. He was the only student doing belt testing this time around. None of the students had been aware of this -- they only knew that they themselves weren't doing testing. He was awarded his orange belt and a special certificate.

So there was no harsh spotlight on the student doing the testing. No one but the senseis and the student himself knew he was actually being tested. And all the other students were gaining the experience of doing the testing, but without any of the stress or worry. A 'dry run' if you will. When they are offered the opportunity to test, they'll have been through the whole experience at least once already. The rule is that you are not eligible for belt advancement until you've done at least one gasshuku as a non-testing student. These senseis doesn't seem to advance students quickly. There is only one student under 17 in their two programs (in two different towns) who is more advanced than orange belt level. From glancing at the attendance cards of the students in Noah's class, it looks like only two of them have done any belt testing this year. Belt promotions mean a lot of work and a lot of committment. They mean something big. But the testing doesn't seem to be a big deal. If I had had to design a system of grade-promotions for a children's activity, I don't think I could have come up with anything more to my liking.

Noah is no longer saying he never wants to do belt testing -- which is a significant change in his stance. And he seems to be enjoying Aikido more consistently lately.

He especially loved it today. The other thing that was different today is that one of the boys with some behaviour / attitude issues was not there. Noah is extremely sensitive to negative attitudes amongst classmates. He finds poor behaviour by other kids stressful, because he gets emotionally wrapped up in what he assumes are the hurt feelings and frustration of the instructors. He finds that the whole atmosphere feels poisoned to him. I don't know if being in school for the past 7 years would have worn down that sensitivity in him, but even though it causes him stress sometimes I'm sure glad he still has it.

Age- and ability-levelling

The regional non-competitive music festival is a three-hour round-trip drive away, and the kids from our little program were heavily involved in the string portion this year. The administrators of the festival, in a bid to encourage our participation, were very kind and accommodating from an organizational standpoint. We kept our kids out of the small, specific classes (like "Romantic Solo, under 12" or "Solo, age 6 and under") and instead put them in the general class ("Recital Group: three contrasting selections, Junior level"). And as a result the festival organizers were able put all our kids' performances on one day.

It made for a marathon day. We left home at 7:30 a.m. and didn't get home until almost 11:00 p.m., but it was a price we willingly paid for not having to make three or four trips. There were five families from our program taking part, so we all arrived together with a real sense of it being a festival, a celebration.

There were some glitches with the rehearsals and accompanying which I won't get into here; suffice it to say that there was considerable extra stress added to the solo performances due to these unforeseen circumstances. But the kids all pulled through gloriously. The under 14 Recital group class consisted of 9 students -- entirely our crew -- split into a morning session and an afternoon session, with a few miscellaneous classes scattered around the edges of 'ours'.

It was such fun watching our kids be in the audience. They've known each other for at least five years. They are incredibly supportive of each other. They sat in various combinations, on one or two of the front pews of the church, smiling, applauding, discretely high-fiving each other after performances, letting Fiona slip from lap to lap, hugging, whispering quietly during the interludes. The ages were 5, 8, 9, 11, 11, 12, 13, 13 and 14. The levels from early Book 3 to post-Book 10.

In the middle of the afternoon session the adjudicator did a kind of double-take, realizing that this vast range of students was all part of the same entry class.

"It's kind of unusual," she said during the verbal adjudication of the spunky 8-year-old who had just played a snappy confident Presto movement of the Vivaldi a minor Violin Concerto, "to have a class where 8-year-olds are together with advanced 13-year-olds. This is where you parents and teachers should talk to the organizers of the festival, so that next time there's a class for 8-and-under, and 10-and-under and 12-and-under. That way you [the 8-year-old] can be in with a group of that's your own."

It was one of those moments when I didn't know whether to laugh hysterically and or pick my jaw up off the floor and start a loud rant. The 8-year-old in question was at that very moment crammed into a pew amongst a joyfully friendly group of five smiling friends who were, in every possible way, "a group of her own." These were her friends, role-models, the kids she's a role model to, her fans and supporters and fellow-musicians. "Just look at them!" I wanted to shout. "What 'group of her own' could possibly be better than this?!!"

Thankfully I just sat there smiling and quietly rolling my eyes. My mom, who teaches all these kids, quickly spluttered "but these are her friends!" The adjudicator acknowledged this obvious fact and moved on, likely without really thinking it through and questioning her assumptions. Is there really anything that can be said that will shake people out of their assumptions that the best learning environment is one that consists of people who are more or less exactly your age and more or less exactly your level? It's just such an ingrained part of how we as a society do education. Even when an amazing alternative model is staring us in the face from the smiling second row of seats at a music festival, we fall back on the same unthinking assumptions.

In the evening the Summit Strings, our seven Book 4-10+ students, ages 8-14, played as an ensemble to cap off their contributions to the festival. The performance was stunning. It said everything that I had wanted to say to the adjudicator about the value of combining ages and levels, but it said it in music -- so much better than any words could have.

Backwards 9's

This is a page of math Fiona did not too long ago. I love it for a few reasons. First of all, I'm proud of what she understands about math. I'm delighted that she enjoys putting it down on paper and has no hangups about workbooks -- they're just fun the way crossword puzzles might be for adults. But I also love this example because it puts an unschooling spin on what could be a pretty conventional schoolish program.

I mean, look at this ... here she is doing addition and subtraction easily and correctly, with an understanding of place value, but she's still writing 9's backwards. And about half of her 3's too, and occasional 6's and 4's as well, though you don't see those here. For Fiona a solid vibrant foundation in math has nothing to do with knowing how to make tidy numerals that point in the right direction.

I remember Sophie at age 7, doing multi-digit multiplication, and incorporating fantastic mental math shortcuts that demonstrated a firm mastery of place value, but still occasionally writing "13" as "31" and other such incongruous mistakes.

Fortunately my kids don't read curriculum-writers' scope and sequence. They don't know that multi-digit multiplication shouldn't be taught until they've sorted out whether twenty-four is written as 24 or 42. They don't know that work with parentheses and multiplication should wait until after you have learned to print a numeral 9 correctly.

I love these little incongruities. They're like the little stories I can sometimes read outside, the ones made of a bicycle left near a copse of trees, a discarded jacket, a pile of special stones, a stick in the ground. And one sandal. How odd. Where is the other one? What happened here?

These little trails of clues are evidence of my kids charting their own unique course, led by interest, veering off in unexpected directions, finding unusual ways of looking at things and moving where they decide they should. The backwards 9's are evidence that my kids are going at things their own way, according to their agenda.

Toy austerity

You'd think that with four creative unschooled kids and a parental penchant for buying educational resources we'd be overrun with toys, but we've actually done pretty well at keeping things to a minimum. I've culled and freecycled things that didn't seem to appeal to the kids long-term, and been careful not to bring more into our home. Most of what we have are open-ended toys that have staying power. Basically we have the following:

Pattern blocks, the blocks and marbles set Fiona's using in the photo, K'nex, Playmobil castle, SnapCircuits electronics kit, Brio train stuff and dress-up things. I confess there are a few stuffies around as well, though not many. And some SpeedStacks stacking cups. We have a fair number of family games and a few little things I haven't mentioned, but considering that we've been at this parenting racket for over fourteen years and have both genders and a variety of personalities represented, our toy selection is actually pretty small.

I discovered early on that my kids were easily overwhelmed by too many choices. Once, before Fiona was born, we went on a family retreat to a tiny cabin in the snow. We were there for two days with no electronic entertainment and very limited space, and the only "toys" we took with us were some balloons and a few crayons. The kids have never played so well. They turned the stairs into a pirate ship. Balloons were treasures, and pets, and people, and balls. They enacted an hour-long story with a small strip of green paper and a crayon, one that had the three of them in hysterics. It was a very clear demonstration to me that less is more. With all sorts of toys and external amusements at their disposal, my kids are easily overwhelmed by the possibilities. They expect fun to happen to them, but often nothing feels quite right for them in the moment. With limited possibilities available, they dive in and make their own fun. The serious toy cull kicked in after that weekend.

I love the way these few toys we have come back and back to amuse and stimulate the kids in different ways over the years. The blocks and marbles set, for instance, is a balancing game and fine-motor exercise when the kids are very young. Later it becomes an exercise in logic and design, a physics playground that requires little tweaks depending on the momentum of the marbles, and, although it's a large set, provides an exercise in the allocation of scarce resources to maximize height and length of the run. In between it has also served many other purposes. It's been especially enjoyed as a violin-practicing counter-of-repetitions -- build a run, and drop a marble in every time you nail the trill-and-turn at the end of the first Boccherini Minuet section.