Freedom Vs. Complusion in Education

I have been evaluating how I REALLY feel about freedom & the use of compulsion in education & life in general. A few weeks ago I read “The Leadership Education Continuum” by Diann Jeppson & Jodie Palmer (in the appendix of Leadership Education:The Phases of Learning by Oliver & Rachel DeMille) and and listened to the free workshop you can download at Leadership Education Family Builder.

This really got the thinking! This continuum is a cyclical diagram that shows how the stages, 7 keys & 5 environments of Leadership Education all work together.  I cannot reproduce it here, but it is on page 301 of Leadership Education. The diagram shows the Freedom Agreement running across the center. I interpret this placing as a hinge of sort. It is the unifying practice that holds everything together. The mortar of a brick building, the eggs in a cake. So I ask myself. Just how am I living this principle? Have I fully accepted it?

Well, let’s define it first. It is basically the idea that personal freedom to pursue one’s own education works. It produces an individual who knows freedom.

WARNING! Soapbox Rabbit Trail Below

 (I do not mean having a head knowledge of the definition of freedom. I mean knowing it deep down in your bones so that it becomes a part of who you are and it sickens you when you see freedom being violated for yourself and others. These types of people are far and few between these days! It’s obvious they are a minority in elected officials if they are there at all. We allow our freedom to be hampered everyday.  For example, you cannot build on your own property without permits and paying the permit fees. You cannot start a new business without some sort of licensing, fee and government oversight.  This is not freedom. I read recently that 1 in 5 jobs in the USA is involved with monitoring the behavior of other people in some way. That is just wrong! )

 It also produces a person who loves learning because all they have learned has been intrinsically motivated, not coerced. Compulsory education makes an assumption here. The assumption is that freedom does not work with education. Reading, math and the like must be learned using coercion, a closed environment from which there is no escape, rewards for compliance & punishments for non-compliance (aka independent thought). The Freedom Agreement assumes that freedom in education does work and with superior results!

 Now when I read this I thought I agreed totally! I am a TJEder! We’ve been home educating this way for almost 4 years now, and even before I found TJEd, I was very relaxed in our methods. But then I hit a bump in the road.

I wrote here about how La had said she wanted to work on her math facts in order to be able to do Life of Fred. I thought, “Great! This is working! I can stop worrying about whether or not she will ever learn her math facts and move on in math!”

 ~ Here comes the road bump ~

This lasted less than one day when she burst into tears saying she doesn’t want to do this anymore! So no more work on math facts!  I confess I was shocked and disappointed.  I tried to figure out what went wrong.  After some soul searching and prayer this is what I discovered.

1. I was emotionally invested in her accomplishing this which made it my goal, not hers. 
2. When we went to practice the math facts, I used a method that I thought would produce the quickest results. I failed to take into account her learning style and temperament.

This was inspiration with string attached. You see, it became all about me. All about relieving my silent fear that, she will never learn _________, if I don’t require it. I had crossed the line of freedom in her own education. I was pushing and using compulsion techniques. This is when Inspire not Require becomes manipulation and I need watch this in myself.

So, I still need to work on accepting the Freedom Agreement. I need to daily remind myself that it is my job to expose, inspire and help our home to be a learning environment. It is her job to learn, grow, and move through the phases at her own pace.

So why do this? It’s much easier to buy a curriculum, make sure your child is “on track” with everyone else, or yield the freedom to an “authority” of an online school.  I struggle through this because I want something better for my daughter. I want her to know freedom in her bones, to function within freedom, to have a deep love of learning that will last a life time, and be practiced in the skills of a scholar.

I need to trust freedom, trust my daughter & trust the guidance of my Lord God.

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 

2 Corinthians 3:17

The Magic of Life of Fred

I must share about the magic Life of Fred has done in our home. La has never been a huge math fan. I am a big believer in Inspire not Require, so this summer I started to look at why this was so. There were a few reasons. First of all, I had not shown her how important math is to daily life. Second, I was not really doing any math as an example. I was not working out math problems or calling attention to when I needed to use math in my daily life. So I started two things. 

• Calling attention to when & why I need to use math in my daily life.
• I bought a copy of Life of Fred: Fractions and started doing it on my own during study time.

This is Fred © Stanley F. Schmidt

Well, she was intrigued with the book immediately.  I read it aloud to her and I would do the questions at the end of each chapter. It wasn't long before she was asking me to read her the questions and show her how to figure out the answer. I learned that La was very good at figuring out how to do the problems. She knew when to multiply or subtract, but she could not do the higher operations such as double digit multiplication or long division. This interest continued and lead to her asking to do Life of Fred & writing out all the answers to the problems as we did them together.

Well, yesterday we finished chapter 9 and I experienced a small miracle.  She asked me if I would help her learn what she needs to know so we could continue together. She also asked me if I would wait for her to continue Life of Fred! Of course I will! She needs to thoroughly learn all her math facts, long division and multiplying with double digit numbers. I am so excited because she is now self-motivated to do the work it takes to get up to speed with Life of Fred. I am hoping her motivation will last. I plan on making it fun using games & contests. I will keep you updated.

Does anyone have any good resources for homemade & online games for getting down your math facts?

Thanks for writing this awesome series Dr. Schimdt! Fred has opened a whole new world of math and fun for us!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/11 to 10/15

What we are reading ~
Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction
La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief 

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island
Morning Read Aloud ~ The Horse  & His Boy
Evening Read Aloud ~ Gulliver's Travels

Around the House ~
After not having internet access on my computer for about 10 days I finally got it back up and running again! Everything else was pretty normal household-wise this week.

Out & About ~

We has our first Firefly Corps meting about India this week. La did her presentation about Indian Payal or anklets & then the girls all made their own complete with little bells. Sorry I don't have any pic's. They came out all blurry with my phone camera. During the meeting other girls presented on geography, contributions & Ghandi. La skipped weekly homeschool class this Wednesday to stay home and play with the neighbor kids.

Our Study Time ~

We continued with the regulars of spelling, Latin & math. La says Latin is getting boring and she doesn't want to do it anymore. I tell her that is fine with me, but every time I get the book out she is right there doing it with me! Other highlights of the week ~

• online jigsaw puzzles
• started cursive practice
• read some about Columbus
• catching salamanders

The cursive writing was a surprise to me. La just said one day during spelling that she wanted to learn cursive so she could write faster.  I reminded her that she had a cursive work book she could use. That seemed to kill her interest. The next morning I suggest I write a sentence from one of her favorite books in cursive & she could copy it. She loved that idea. Now she is spending a few minutes a day trying to write out this one sentence perfectly. She said when she can write it well she will start with another sentence.  It's amazing how kids will find an interesting way to learn something when they want to learn it. That is the essence of Simple not Complex.

I had my first book club meeting this week. It was so much fun. Seven fun ladies came over & we discussed The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne. It was a lively discussion! I can't wait until next month!

Afternoons ~

Outside catching salamanders! Need I say more?

Next week we have art class at the Kimball Art Center. That is always wonderful!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/4 to 10/8

What we are reading ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction

La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief & Finished Brewster's Courage

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island

Morning Read Aloud ~ The Horse  & His Boy

Evening Read Aloud ~ Gulliver's Travels

Around the House ~ 

This week I made my grandmother's sticky buns! Making these made me miss her. She passed away about a year and a half ago. before that she suffered from Alzheimer's Disease for many years. I do wish I had asked her to show me how to make these when I could have!

Out & About Learning ~

We had homes school class at the South Summit Aquatic & Fitness center as usual. I don't think I have been including that in my wrap-ups. It was Playground Games this week. Always a very fun & social time!

Friday we went to the Bug Brigade at the Utah Museum pf Natural History. Out study of microorganisms has led to an interest in bugs. So off we went! La held a few bugs & had a confrontation with a praying mantis. 

Study Time ~

We decided to not make a lot of plans this week and let study time flow. We still accomplished so much! 

• La made a Lunch Menu with prices & we used it at lunch time to practice counting money, making change, etc...
• La planned her project for India to be done at the next Firefly Corps meeting.
• Continued with Latin & Spelling
• Learned about the Tower of Hanoi puzzle & played it. Tough logic puzzle!
• La got curious about where yeast comes from & what it is. No doubt due to my recent fascination with baking. We looked it up which lead to thre days of learning about microorganisms.
• We watched videos about amoebas & cell division. La made a model of a cell out out of Ziploc bag, water, a marble (nucleus), pencil cushion (contractile vacuole) & an eraser (food vacuole). 
• sketched some insects. Do you know what makes an arachnid different from other insects? We do!

Afternoons ~ 

We either continued studies or La played outside. She has been catching newts. They look like small black & green salamanders & we have lots of them. La & the neighbor kids love them!

Next week we have Firefly Corps Meeting on Tuesday. Should be fun!

Weekly Wrap Up 9.26.10

What we are reading ~

Me ~ Weapons of Mass Instruction

La ~ Percy Jackson Series- The Lightening Thief

Chris ~ The Creature from Jekyll Island

Morning Read Aloud ~ Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Around the House ~ Getting back on track for daily chores. La is starting to help me with every household job now. She doesn't like cleaning toilets! Who does? She asked me why she needs to do all this with me. I said, "Because we don't have cows." 

Out & About Learning ~ Art class at the Kimball Art Center & Homeschool PE Class.

Study Time ~

Our scheduled study time is from 9:30 until lunch. La has been wanting to do lots of lessons during this time. This is very different than from years past. In the past we mostly did whatever we felt like during this time, but now she is wanting to make plans and is sticking to them. Here is what we did this week.

• 1-2 Latin Lessons 4 days - one great thing about this Latin book I have is that is covering English grammar by talking about subjects, verbs & conjunctions, etc...
• Sequential Spelling 4 days
• A science experiment about fall leaves
• Lorelei finished 2 Greek projects 
• Olympic fact finding exercise
• Researching how Christmas is celebrated in Greece
• In Momschool I  covered the following
• Ferdinand Magellan
• First Day of Fall
• Thales - Greek mathetician
• Euripides - Greek playwright

Afternoons ~ We either continued studies or La played outside. She has been collecting and chopping acorns. I love to see her spend a few hours outside everyday.

Next week La asked me to plan Math a couple days. WOW! She is asking for math! 

I hope to do a weekly update for every week. Firefly Corps meeting tomorrow. Should be fun!!!!

Our First Official "School Week"

This week was our first week of getting back on track from Summer. In our home we are always learning, but I try to keep a more structured schedule during the traditional school year. I started out with a great schedule but had to tweak it a little bit. Here is how our days are going.

I have set aside the mornings from 9:30 until lunch to be our structured school time. We start this with prayer & read aloud, then start our studies. La makes a goal list for each week. So far we have been studying spelling & Latin everyday, math a couple times a week, a study of Greece almost daily, one science project per week & This Day in History. La is reading Persy Jackson & the Lightening Thief. She has learned so much about Greek mythology from this book!

We have had great weather & been doing a lot of reading on the back porch!

I am pretty happy with the way things are going.  La is actually choosing to do things that look like "school" this year. I think she is realizing there are things she does need to learn & is enjoying it. I am so glad we never forced academics on her at a younger age!

This week's Day in History has some great stuff! The first day of Autumn, birthday of Euripides & Ferdinand Magellan.  Sometimes I think I am having more fun than La!

Is There a Perfect Curriculum?

Over the years I have tried various curriculums.  I have watched others start & stop many more. Every summer I revisit websites of curriculum that I have admired. Each summer I am tempted to buy a complete package from several of them. The whole idea of having everything planned out and thought through is so appealing to me. I especially love all the literature based, Charlotte Mason styled curriculum out there. Every year there are more. They seduce me with all their colorful covers & gridded lesson plans. How I love the idea of the gridded lesson plan. There it is before me all laid our subject by subject, day by day. How this appeals to my detail oriented mind. "You've tried this before," an inner voice says. "Looks like a prettier conveyor belt to me." "And a lot less work for me!" I think to myself. Inspiring, but not requiring is much harder work!

Yes, it is an illusion. Life & learning do not unfold in a neat grid. Bullet points have facts, but no flavor. There is security in these curricula, but no life. There is the security of "getting it covered", but there is not liberty.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin

The Liberty to direct your path in learning. The Freedom to Fall In Love with Life & Learning. So I wonder what is a perfect curriculum. I have thought about this a lot the last few weeks. 

Today in my quiet time, I thought about Jesus. I asked myself about His example of teaching. As far as I can see He did 2 things.  1. Told stories (parables) & discussed them (and other issues) with his disciples, 2. Lived as a perfect example for us.  So, this boils down to talking & example. In terms of Leadership Education I think one can say Jesus used ~

Classics (scripture & parables), Mentoring (discussing classics), Example (his sinless behavior) to teach.  Sounds a lot like some of the 7 Keys. 

• Classics, not Textbooks
• Mentors, not Teachers
• You, not Them (Jesus studied scripture & spent time in prayer)
• Inspire, not Require (all his disciples were so inspired by Him that they chose to give up their lives to follow Him)

I never really thought to look at education this way.  It is such an affirmation to me to see these Keys are reflected in Scripture. I think this all boils down to one word.

~ EXAMPLE ~

If you as a parent are living as you hope your child will live one day, they will follow. If you study, they will eventually study. If you pray with them & in front of them, so will they. If you serve others, they will serve others. If you are a Godly Spouse (as much as you humanly can be), they will grow to be the same.  Example is everything!

So I have found it. The perfect curriculum for us.  EXAMPLE

Goodbye to the ease & security of packaged curriculum.  I have a lot of work to do!

{I wonder if I will still revisit all my favorite curriculum sites next summer}

Gearing Up & Planning for the New Year

Now is the time of planning! La & I have made our list of goals for the coming school year. Books have been ordered and on their way.  School supplies have been bought. We ordered Sequential Spelling this year. La is so excited about this that we started it already.  She was so proud today when she spelled "beginning" correctly on the first try!

I have worked out a schedule that I think will work well for us. I have attempted to embed it below.

Weekly Schedule

You will see a lot of study ideas & topics. That is my study schedule, not La's. They are the things I want to learn about this year. La has her own goals. She will be working on these after our Momschool time until lunch and then in the afternoons.  Each week she will be making some goals based on her yearly goals. Here are her yearly goals for this school year.

• Win 1 ski race on Park City's Farm Team
• Do 2 math lessons a week & memorize all +, - & x facts
• Read at least 10 books over 200 pages each
• Do one science experiment a week- Chemistry & Physics
• Prepare one Firelfy Corps Presentation per month (history, geography or culture) and study more about the countries at home as wished
• Journal writing everyday
• Sequential Spelling every school day
• Continue to study Architecture History with Dad
• Do yoga daily

I was pretty impressed with this list for a 9 year old. These are all her own goals. She will be busy!

I feel really good about this year. I am hoping I will meet some major goals myself!

Right now I am reading "Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens". I am really enjoying it. I realize that my own stage of education somewhere between LOL & Scholar ~ moving back & forth between the two. I want to add all the 13 year old books that I haven't read yet to my reading list this year. 

It's gonna be a BIG, FUN year!

7 Keys of Great Teaching Inventory

The heart of Leadership Education is based on the 7 Keys of Great Teaching. These 7 Keys are principles that can be applied to many education methods.

1. Mentors NOT Professors
2. Classics NOT Textbooks
3. Quality NOT Conformity
4. Inspire NOT Require
5. Structure Time NOT Content
6. Simple NOT Complex
7. You NOT Them

Keys 4-5 apply most readily apply to the Love of Learning Phase. This is the phase that La is in right now. Key 7 applies to me. Every so often I like to take an inventory of how I am applying these ~ so here it goes.

4. Inspire NOT Require

So I do a pretty good job of NOT Require. I try to not put academic demands on La and let her set her own academic goals. Right now she loves reading which makes the "productive mama" in me very happy. This is not easy for me. I LOVE worksheets & projects with defined parameters. La's brain works in just the opposite way, so it a challenge for me to let her go about her own way. But it is paying off ~ she has discovered she loves reading, history & art. I have a tougher time with Inspire. Most of what I do to inspire is interpreted by La as trying to control content. As soon as I see that glazed-over look I can tell she is shutting down to the idea and I know I need to change gears. The last thing I want is for her to develop a "hate of learning" by being is bored and uninterested. So I have found this next Key to be The Key to Inspiring.

7. You NOT Them

This Key is based in the idea that your children will rise to the level of education of the parents. It's about setting an example of a life long learner and getting a great Leadership Education yourself. When I do this I find La getting inspired. When I am setting goals, striving towards those goals, reading, writing, working on memorization, and developing skills, La becomes interested in what I am doing and dapples in it herself. The problem is the When. I am great at structuring this on paper, but mediocre at follow through. It seems there is always something happening ~ a broken washing machine, visitors, field trips, planning our history club~ that I let get in the way of my studying. It's a matter of discipline. I know it! Something to continue to work on.

5. Structure Time NOT Content

I have down NOT Structuring Content. This took a couple years to completely give up, but I have finally done it. I would go back and forth with one foot on the Conveyor Belt. I have stopped looking at State Standards and anything that tries to tell me what La "should" be learning. This has been a very freeing decision. I am with her everyday. I see her work. I know were she is ~ exactly were she should be ~ on her own individual academic and development schedule. Now, Structure Time has been a challenge. Again, I am great about writing out a schedule ~ but not so great in following it. When I do, we have great days. When I don't, our days are fair to worse. Not giving into the urgent, keeping our mornings at home consistent, disciplining myself to follow a schedule when I don't feel like it are challenges for me. It's not that everyday has to follow the same schedule. There are field trips, ski days, days we watch other children for friends, etc.. All of these things have great value and including them in our lives is a big reason why we homeschool. Still, there needs to be a balance between outside opportunities and regular home time. I would be happy with 3 consistent weekdays per week at home on a schedule. I would say this happens in spurts of a couple months at a time and then we get off kilter with something and need to fight our way back.

6. Simple NOT Complex

this Key is to say that learning should be simple. I have this one down. Our studying includes 3 methods.

1. Reading great books ~ together & independently
   
2. Me asking La what she wants to learn about and then we go about learning it through more books, the internet, games and projects which can take many forms
   
3. La coming along side me in what I am studying

I don't think it can get more simple than that.

So, at the end of my inventory I come to two conclusions. You NOT Them is the key to Inspiring and in order to accomplish this, I need to develop more disciple and follow through with Structuring Time. This has been a life long challenge for me. I am so thankful I am not in it alone!

"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline."
2 Timothy 1:7

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

Today our day reminded me of that children's book titled If You Give a Moose a Muffin. We started off study time planning what to do.

• La (my 8 year old) wants to set up her own blog after seeing mine. We do this together and she gets some experience using blogger, photoshop, and dealing with how frustrating computer can be.
• Then she is done and wants to make something with clay. She asks for some aluminum foil to use as structure for the thicker pieces.
  
• She asks if aluminum is a metal. We do a little research on metals, alloys & minerals
• She looks at our Great Scientists book.
  
• Then she gets out her renaissance costume and plays in that for a while after being inspired by the people in pictures we saw about the Bronze Age.
• After this she plays outside for a while.
• Then she comes in and decides it's time to work on her blog. She writes a one sentence post which presents the opportunity for me to guide her in using our Spelling Dictionary, tell her about root words and remind her about plurals.
• Then we are off to make a practice birthday cake. She wants a cake for her birthday next week that is rainbow colored inside. She reads the directions and follows through. I am their for questions and guidance.

So goes a day in a TJEd Leadership Education home with one Love of Learner. Interests running hot and cold and changing by the minute. Sound familiar?