Learning, when our backs are turned.

As I sit here, thinking about the lessons I am in the middle of compiling, the curriculum I have yet to purchase, my mind is on worry mode. We haven't covered enough from last year, will I have the time to cover what I want this year? We should be learning RIGHT NOW, we've had a 4 week break, going into our 5th and we STILL HAVEN'T STARTED LEARNING YET.....ARRGGH!!

Learning is something we do every day and truthfully, most of our useful skills are learnt through doing, observing and osmosis. Really. Kids absorb their environment unconsciously.  If you don't believe me, pay attention the next time you see young  kids playing. If you pay careful attention you will see how much education is really going on, while you weren't looking!

I have learnt more as an adult just by living my life than I ever did in a classroom. Actually, that's not entirely true. I am a book worm. My nose is always in a book. Always has been. My mother had to ban reading at the dinner table because my youngest sister and I would read and not eat our dinner.  I was educated by books. All books. Not just reference books. Fiction plays such an important role in teaching us about our world and how to live in it. Even when we are reading about Middle Earth or a galaxy far far away or a hidden world in the back of a cupboard.

When I say things like this around other home schooling parents they nod their heads, smile and say "Oh, You follow Charlotte Mason!" To which I am always quick to politely reply, No, No I don't.
Ms. Masons method, though seemingly complimentary to my own approach to education is simply not how we roll here in the crayon box.  Whilst we love nature walks, we're not really into doing them every single day.  And I don't agree with her that grammar and spelling are not important, even in the early years.


But literature is the focus and lynch pin of our home school environment. All subjects have a literature component. (We have a not-quite unit study approach to all our education so numerous subjects are covered by studying one topic) We read, together, separately, out loud. (The crayon box is a very silent place to be after 9pm. We're all in bed, either already asleep or reading.) In fact, recently on holiday in Bermagui, the family who own the caravan next to ours commented on how quiet we are, I just smiled and lifted my book up in answer. For a whole week the television was never turned on  and yes we do have a tv in the caravan.   During school times, if the tv is on it's because we are watching a documentary, something political, the news or listening to classical music on AIR. Books are our crack.

When we studied WW2 we read literature. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit,  The Morris Gleitzmen trilogy Once, Then and Now.  The Book Thief.  And various non-fiction books. We read seemingly un-related fiction, like John Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began series, Catherynne M Valente's The Little Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a boat of her own making, Michael Gruber's The Witch's Boy.  (Because the thing that linked them together was the human need for stories. It's why history exists in the first place. It's why our Indigenous cultures taught through story telling, through art, through dance, through song and why those cultures have prevailed despite the efforts made to rub them out of existence. It's why book burning has been used as a tool against societies for as long as there has been books.  Because it's  the humanities that show us how to be human, perfectly flawed humans. )

We also looked at Maps and we watched documentaries. And never cracked a single textbook.  I'm not sure how much of the dates we remember, or the names of actual people, but we certainly got a feel for the human cost, for the lessons that history had to teach us and a hunger to know more.

And that is my job as an educator and their mother. It's not to prepare them for high performance on standardised testing or how to parrot back information, it's to light that fire in them, to fuel the hunger to want to know more.  To show them how the world was, how it is and to ask them  how they would like it to be and urge them, guide them, facilitate them towards making that happen.

Literature is a powerful tool for an educator. Charlotte Mason got that much right.

Holidays over back to the grind.

Well, not that my version of grind is really grinding at all.

We've spent a fabulous month just existing as a family.  Fishing trips, bush walks, fierce xbox 360 Kinect competitions (I swear, I will beat the man in a sprint race eventually. My mistake was that I beat him first go and showed him how to run correctly for the game... *sigh*)
But I do believe I have the Kinect Ten Pin Bowling Trophy in the bag.

Our time spent down the coast was wonderful, but I did miss my ed and my garden that is spewing up all kinds of wonderful things to eat.  (I will post pics soonish, haven't taken any of the garden and my hay fever has reached such astronomical levels as to render me incapable of talking normally I couldn't be bothered to do it today. I keep losing my voice, much to everybody else's amusement)

So internet time is still sporadic as I finalise schooling plans for this term, get the dishwasher fixed (which judging from the telephone call I got today I am a little sceptical about whether or not 'Donna' logged my job properly.)  get some reading time in and you know just the general everyday stuff we women do that men never even have to think about!

gratuitous weekend recap

Now that the weather is warming up and the football season is done and dusted, we spend a lot more time outdoors.  This weekend the girl child and I did a lot of walking while the rest of the family went fishing round the lake.

We started off around the Lake nearest our home were we came across a family of swans out for a walk...

The one closest to us started to run and the girl child for getting a little too close!

A little further down the track we met graffiti artist Joe, who was busy at his trade. This is his incomplete work....hopefully we'll get to see the completed picture on our next walk around the lake!

We decided to go out the river.  But it was the heat of the day and carp don't really bite much when it's hot.  Still, the oldest boyling managed to hook this one.

We had a jammed packed weekend.
So happy it's monday and I can finally relax!

I Can Fly

Todays Google shout out to Mary Blair has left me all nostalgic for the stories of my childhood.

When I was small, while other children were given lollies or smarties at the checkouts, I was given a little golden book, if I had behaved myself.  I come from a long line of bookish women so naturally, I behaved impeccably and as such, had an enormous collection of little golden books. (Back then, little golden books were cheaper than lollies and chocolate bars)

My favourite book was a short book called I Can Fly. (I did attempt a link. The link failed. The book was written by Ruth Krauss)

Mary Blair was the illustrator.

When it comes to the books my mother read me as a small child, I remember words mostly, the way she would say them, how they made me feel.

I remember the fear, the creeping fear when she read me the Jabberwocky....

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

           The jaws that bite, the claws that snatch! 

I remember the tingling up my spine, the anticipation, the suspense when she read The Raven.

While I nodded,  nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door...  

I remember the way she would bray like a donkey when reading I Can Fly,

I'm a donkey in the straw, Hee Haw   HEE HAW 

But what I remember most about I Can Fly, is the bright vivid pictures. They really captured my imagination far more than the simplistic words of the story. I can still see those images when I close my eyes, all these years later. Even after my treasured little book, so well loved and read its' edges were furry, worn paper, some tears, until finally it just fell apart, I haven't seen the inside of I Can Fly since I was about 12.  But I still remember those beautiful pictures. (A characteristic I remember being inherent in most little golden books by the various artists' who illustrated them. The Pokey Little Puppy, Captain Kangaroo and the Colour Kittens are the ones I remember most vividly from that time.)

I still remember being curled up on my Holly Hobby sheets, a crocheted blanket by my Nanny on top, my mother sitting beside me and that belief that 3 yr old girls can have when they are taught even the sky has no limits....that I could fly!  Because my mother, Ruth Krauss and Mary Blair told me I could.

(And yes they also told me I could be a donkey, or a chicken, the point was, I was only ever restricted by my imagination.)

   

NB: Image used without permission ( although I did ask the blogger) from  this visually gorgeous blog full of art that will make you squee. 

(this is the page the image above is from. if you scroll down the page you will see a girl with a donkey, that is from I Can Fly and every time I see that image, I hear my mother braying like a donkey)

The Ballad of Fuck Off and the broken glasses.

Once upon a time, there was a woman.
She was a married woman, and with her husband they had three charming children.
One day, it was a Saturday, the woman was in the bathroom brushing her hair.
Her husband rushed in, a twinkle in his blue eyes. He spun her around, picked her up
and placed her on the bathroom bench in order to give her a deeply romantic and loving kiss.
The woman felt something beneath her and heard a 'SNAP'!
The husband placed his hand beneath her and pulled out her hairbrush, which was unharmed.
The woman feeling foolish, smiled sheepishly at her husband and kissed him again.
He lifted her off the counter and she went back to doing her hair.
She reached her hand out to grab her glasses and place them on her face....
OH NO! That snap she had heard? It was her glasses!!
She showed her husband the broken glasses and he asked "What did you break them for?"
She gave him that look, you know the one that makes the Julie Bishop death stare look like a love struck Pepe Le Pew.
They rounded up their three charming children, they were going to the optometrist.  On the way there, the husband regaled the children with the story of how the glasses were broken. The woman reminded him that had he not sat her on the bathroom counter, the glasses would not be broken, to which the husband kept replying, "Did you or did you not sit in your glasses? If you didn't sit on your glasses who did?"
When the woman told him to Fuck Off, he decided that must be the new name she wished to be called. Because if Fuck Off sat on the glasses, and she sat on the glasses, then that meant that she was Fuck Off.
(Yes Saturday, it was a long day. )
At the Optometrist, there was no technician working that day. And even if there was, nothing could save the woman's glasses. They were beyond hope.  Without her sight giving glasses, there is only so much the woman's eyes can take before she cannot see anything but a blur.
She would have to wait to Monday for an appointment. And would probably have to wait a week for the  new glasses to be ready.  Which has bummed the woman right out because she has much reading, internet faffery and a football game to watch.  I mean, who goes to a Monday Football game she cannot watch because she cannot see????  I'll tell you who, FUCK OFF does!

echo, echo, echo--gee it's empty in here.

I haven't written a post in a long time. My outrage quota has reached dangerous levels of late, so high that they make coherency near impossible. (The articulation motherboard is fried, sentence structure is suspect and grammar is no longer detectable)

There are several things I keep wanting to address. But the words, well, they just won't play nicely.
But I have thoughts on sweat shops I need to put down some time, thoughts on classism, thoughts on the blatant fear mongering that seems to be sweeping through the populace about people of 'other' origin. More thoughts on identity and in particular Indigenous identity.

Maybe one day this week I'll get my head around the thoughts enough to be able to apply critical thinking and analysis to them in a coherent enough manner to actually type them out loud.
In the mean time there's always my 140 character spurts of word vomit on twitter.

Why I am stuck at my computer desk and cannot move...

If I were Queen of the world I would make lunges illegal. Immediate beheading type illegal. Or perhaps I shall simply yell  "Off with his/her legs!" Yes, that makes more sense. No point in losing ones head over lunges.

Excuse me whilst I take the next hour to pull myself out of this chair. Every muscle is screaming at me, and they don't have very nice language.

Random crap

Having spent the morning at the library I now have a lovely little stash of YA novels to puruse.

I love YA.  I find it much harder to find adult fiction that I really like, I suspect due to the way in which we relate our stories changes from age to age. Perhaps that's why I gravitate towards sci-fi and fantasy, where authors take you by the hand and share a whole other world, where you hear the whispers  that reassure you fairytales need not be one of those childish things we put aside as our years advance.

Being the mother of teens has also meant that I spend a lot of time reading books at the urging of my children. They bring me these books like offerings and implore me with wide eyes and shouted whispers of how much they want to share this world with me...how could I refuse?  In turn I place little tomes in their eager hands, classics, literature and mainstream fiction candy and they sit curled with hot tea, blankets and a cat who changes his allegiance  as often as a mug is refilled. 

YA reminds how grown up I am in some ways, and how in many others, I am not very grown at all. And since I have a wounded man home with me, there is nothing more wonderful than curling up on the couch with tea, blanket, cat and man.  If only it would rain...

Dream, Believe, Achieve.

The great thing about home schooling is the flexibility I have in how to teach my kids. Like all schools, I must adhere to certain rules and restrictions , but these restrictions and rules are limited to KLA’s. Provided we teach the Key Learning Areas, how we teach it is up to us. Which is great when you have a group of children who all learn differently and with only 3 kids to teach I have the fortune of being able to tailor their educational needs with not only their individual abilities but also their personal passions and interests.
It’s no secret that here in the Crayon Box we are all rabid Rugby League fans. (Red V is a part of me) So, finding a way to incorporate a family passion into their education was a bit of a no brainer. And thanks to my fabulous husband, (who did the leg work on this one) I have in my grubby little hands the Dream, Believe, Achieve program created by the National Rugby League.
I was reading through the Teacher Resource disc last night, and I must say I am very impressed with the program thus far. The resource I have is designed for years 7 and 8, and contains another program designed for years 9 and 10. (The NRL also have a resource for Primary Schools called Eat Well, Play Well, Stay Well which I hope to get my hands on soon.) My two oldest kids are (by age) grade 8 and grade 10. (My little guy is grade 3, but since he will refuse to be left out, he’ll do the program too, just with me adjusting it for his age and level of comprehension)
The program is divided into three units, (which I will talk about individually) with the fist unit being The Power of One. This particular unit slides very easily into a home school setting as the focus is on self. The rationale behind this unit is

“Healthy relationships begin with a positive image of one’s self. “

So the aim is to build a sense of self, Who am I?, What can I do? Whilst exploring why building self confidence and positive self belief is essential for not only attaining goals and dreams, but also the importance this has on our lives through self, relationships, individuality and community health. The most important lesson being the way we see ourselves has an enormous impact on our mental health.
The program focuses on students being able to assess the importance of responsibility, recognise effort and achievement and how these play a part in the development of one’s sense of self.
Next week, beginning Tuesday, we’ll be covering two lessons a day. The first of which will be Self concept and awareness followed by the second lesson which focuses on self esteem. The following day they will examine the influence of their own actions on other people’s self esteem.
These concepts are taught through the completion of statements on self (eg. What I like best about myself is…. My favourite TV program is…. If I could change one thing about me it would be….. I am special because…. Etc) The next activity is a shield activity where students learn more about themselves through their abilities to identify and write down their own values and think about what is most important in their lives. (I decided to add the G9/10 activity in here also where the students think about their dreams. The activity sheets focuses on immediate dreams with statements like This year… or While at school I…. My career/job/employment….. Personal health….Etc. Where they will fill in the blanks. They then design a football jersey that uses images, motifs, motto’s text, words or anything they choose to represent their dreams. I know my kids will love that activity. And I look forward to seeing what it produces)
Where I think this courses strengths lay is in the next lesson on examining the influences of their own actions on another persons self esteem. Whilst the lessons focus on challenging negative self talk, how to be a good friend to yourself and presenting self esteem facts, I will personally take it that one step further to examining privilege and how our language choices and actions can harm by not just damaging self esteem but by reinforcing otherness. Which ties in well with the following lesson which gives scenarios on stereotyping and reducing stigma. (These scenarios focus on mental health issues using examples of schizophrenia and depression as talking points. The activity is to develop a script or dialogue for a play, or puppet play. It’s also a group activity designed to reinforce the concepts of listening to others and remembering that your words and actions can impact on other people in either a positive or negative way, the choice is up to you.)
　
I am still just really scratching the surface of this program. It was written primarily for young men, although so far in my reading I think the bones f the program itself is fairly non-gendered. A lot of the talking points use examples from football. (Eg. Joe dropped the ball just before the try line right as the full time siren sounded. Joe thought to himself, “I am hopeless at sport.” Instead Joe should have said……..)
I haven’t watched the DVD yet. For this part of the course it’s not yet necessary to. But so far I like what I see. Putting the course into application will be the real test. I am looking forward to it.

It's also good to know that every once in a while, the NRL get it right.

Meh...

I feel so craptacular I am pretty sure (even though I lack the male appendage) I have caught manflu.

Bug boy has a raging respiratory infection. At least the other two males in the house are on the mend (from their manflu at least, one of them has cracked ribs and a back strain from football)  So it's fun times in the crayon box right now.

The girl child decided I needed a picture to cheer me up. (as you can tell from her pic, she is currently revising angels)

Her manga drawings are getting better, she draws better when she's recreating a picture she can see....but her ability to create from her mind is improving vastly as you can see from this one.  (I know she created this one herself as the girl in the picture has no boobs.)

And now I must return to my laundry and try to shift the remaining stubborn stains in three football jerseys, before I collapse on the couch with the kids to watch documentaries on WWI. Because that's about all the schooling I can summon from my codral addled brain today.