Catching Up and Beginning Again

So many things have happened since the last blog...but from here on I think we're in good shape. Consider this to be the start of a series of  photo journals to get caught up.
When: March 23-24, 2011
Where: Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Why: Graduation from Basic Training...for our eldest son, PV2 Beverage, Lyford.

There are some things that you don't see every day. It is not uncommon to see really inappropriate bus stop shelters in Boston. At an Army base, this is what you'll see. Imagine how much nicer a world we 'd have if we each had a battle buddy.

I wondered, as we walked around the Base before Family Day began, how I would recognize my son. In hundreds of young men and women, all dressed alike, with similar haircuts, with hat-brims pulled down low over their eyes, how would I find MY son? How would I recognize him in that sea of digital camouflage?

And there he was. Up front. With 2nd Platoon's Phase Banner. I saw him quickly as they came marching up the street in cadence. And he saw me. And his suppressed grin gave him away...to his mother who knew it best. Then he slipped into his soldier's straight face at the front of his Platoon. No mother was prouder than this one.

Yeah, he looks good...ok, really, he looks great.
(The kids said this is my "Where's Waldo?" shirt. Perhaps that's how he could find me in the middle of all those similar looking people in civvies. )
 Did I mention that I was the really, REALLY proud Mom there that day?

4 hours on Base...and he ate Pizza. Happy Soldier.
I won't share that picture because it might embarrass him.

When: Graduation Day.

When 250 Soldiers march down the street...it's an impressive sight. When they are all in dress blues it's more impressive. When they stand in front of you and announce themselves, well, it's something else.

This part though. This part could choke up any red-blooded American. And this Mom. (Feel free to choke up here too.)

Note smile on Soldier's face. Looks pretty good in the beret too. 

Proud parents. (Yeah, I let Soldier's Father get in a picture too.) The dh made sure that I noted the evidence of the gene pool...note the height of the son as compared to the father and mother. So glad he is at LEAST taller than I am. His sister wasn't so lucky. I'm holding out for the youngest son to top me as well.-- Anyway, looks great, doesn't he? (Feel free to comment about what a handsome kid I've got here.)

 

We were blessed with about 10 hours with our boy that day. 

We fed him...several times. Hooked him up on Skype so he could spend some time with his siblings joking around, playing chess and eating chocolate chip cookies that his brother made for him.

We brought him some clothes, and took some things from him. I was pleased to take him a phone. One he could use...often. I hugged him...and talked to him. And then we took him back to his barracks...too soon for me, but in time for formation... and left him with a bunch of other young men and women to go to places spread around the country to learn more things...different things.

He left for Arizona the next day, and we came home.

This is better now because we can use the phone, or email, or Skype. But we still miss him.

Oh, and did I say that I was proud of him? Yeah, I guess I did. 

I'm proud of him. Very.

Fall to Winter to Spring

When we purchased our little box of a house 18 years ago, I had one child...an infant in a baby carrier. I spent an afternoon in our new front yard planting tulip, crocus and hyacinth bulbs with that little one looking on and jabbering at me as I dug and placed them in the ground in groups under our front window.

Over the years, squirrels have dug some up and eaten them, some have multiplied and some have died, but a few of them have struggled on and continue to come up each spring. The kids though have multiplied...and that first infant has gone on to join the Army National Guard.

Last November, while in the local hardware/garden/feed store with our eldest I asked him to pick out some bulbs of whatever kinds he liked the look of.  That afternoon I handed him a trowel and the paperbag of bulbs and showed him the general area where they could go, to augment the few old ones remaining. He placed them in the ground, occasionally exposing where some of the older bulbs that I planted when he was an infant...and he spread them across the area into spots where they had a greater chance of survival and where we'd know they were new ones. I told him that they would be coming up in the spring and that I'd send him pictures wherever he was so he could see his handiwork. I guess I had an ulterior motive.

This morning I went out to take something to the van and I peeked over at the newly bare ground under the front window and saw this:

Look closely. Kind of in the middle. After a long winter. Snowbanks almost to the eaves in the spot where this little piece of ground is. Snow there only a week ago that was high enough to climb. A few of the bulbs that our young Soldier planted have made an appearance one week before he graduates from Basic Training. I sent this picture to him this morning via snail-mail. Made me smile. Will make him smile too, I think. We've gone from snow-covered, frozen earth to new life and new beginnings. In more ways than one. Many more ways than one. One similarity though. He seems to have had a "high and tight" going on when I planted the first ones as well.

The Talk

No, not THAT talk. Shift gears, people! Seriously, now!

With each of our kids I have had at LEAST one "Talk." The talk is about the fact that learning is HARD work and the work is THEIR responsibility, not mine.
Sometimes...ok, USUALLY, that talk begins with a discovery of shoddy work and I'm angry...and the child is angry. It is what it is. (Some folks have this kind of discussion over other things, but this is my battle.)
"WHY are these exercises blank? WHY did you not do this and WHY pretend that you did?"
I just got to have that discussion with the youngest. Not the first time, but this was the most significant time.

At the start of each "Talk," I usually hear that my child's "output deficit" is my fault...
"You didn't have time when I had a question!"
I will admit, working full-time, that is sometimes (and occasionally often) true. But there is also the fact that they can put a bookmark in it and ask when I'm done what I'm doing. The nature of my work allows this. I will not, however work with a whining child, which can be a drawback for this kiddo sometimes.
The other fact is that often he will tell me "I was waiting for Dad to come home and ask him my question"...and then (variously) "I forgot to ask him" or "Dad didn't have time!" and essentially it becomes someone else's fault..not his.

Then we move to shifting the blame to other siblings. A harder sell.
"THEY are too loud; too distracting; always done when I want to be done too, but I'm not."
"THEY have less work than I do and it's not fair!"
"THEY made it so I couldn't finish and I didn't do it."
Frankly, I'm not buying any of it. Our house is reasonably quiet during the school day and one heck of a lot quieter than a school building! Occasional distractions with the barking dog or people shifting rooms happens, but everyone has the ability to find some quiet space where no one will bother them. The fact that people finish at different times is true. It's the nature of the homeschooling beast. Basically, once the kids have gotten older (around 13-14)and learned the real lessons at hand, they finish school more quickly and are able to go off and do what they really want to do that isn't math, or chemistry or Arabic.

What I drill down for is, "Why did you honestly not do your work?"
And invariably I hear "It was too hard and was taking me too long! I didn't want to do it."
I will say that I try very hard not to overload each day, but I'm also not out to give my kids "free rides" either. Sometimes I might overplan, but 15 years of practice has me pretty good in that department. Some days school takes more time than others, but with that said, the kids can possibly be done by noon or 1 if they don't waste any time. (Not that kids ever waste time, right!? :) )

It comes down to 2 things, really.
1. Schooling...learning...is work. Yep, it's work. School also isn't always a boatload of fun. Sometimes it is, but yes, I said it, it's not always fun and it's not always easy. GOOD!--- Sometimes the thing at hand is hard, unhappy, and time consuming work. Imagine deciding that since laundry and diapers and meals and dishes were work you didn't like, you just weren't going to do them. That'd be a dream, now wouldn't it?--- Now imagine a surgeon opening up a patient and saying, "Gee, looks like that will take me longer than I feel like spending. Let's just close 'er up. "
Consider the hard work that school can be sometimes to be training for real life. It's a fairly safe way to learn the lesson, I think.

2. Learning, particularly by age 12, isn't the "teacher's" responsibility. That responsibility...that ownership...belongs to the learner. You can't force-feed a learner, but rather, the learner must eat the meat and potatoes and peas and cake himself. And yeah, sometimes, the learner is less willing to down the peas (or in my house, it's the potato!)

This is kind of like how I felt/feel about using Excel. I hate the "boxie-ness" of the thing and how I needed to learn a whole set of tools that really mean nothing to me. But in the end, yeah,  it does help me do other things better. It's a nemesis that I had to take on and while it has taken me a while to learn, I can use it fairly well and to my purpose. I've also learned to ask questions and not quit. I'm sure you have your own unpleasantly learned evil!

So, the kids need to own their own learning... and their own success. The success is theirs after all. And inversely, the failure is also their to own. The adage "You get out of something what you put into it" stands. Math can get easier later by putting in more hard work now, but I'm not the one who needs to do that work. HE has to do the work. I (and college professors and bosses et.al.) won't be there forever to hold his hand. He's got to suck it up and get it done...with the work and the time and the effort required. Experience says that with the average mind, practice will make progress. (note that word...PROGRESS! There's no such thing as perfection!) Practicing less of a hard thing has NEVER produced improvement in my experience.

I have confidence that even the 4th child can learn these lessons as the other 3 have. I know this is a developmental point and that I will likely have some other iteration of "the Talk" with him again. I find that some important messages require repetition. But for today, it's onward and upward. Oh, and he just finished some of what he hadn't done. I'll call that good practice. Rinse and repeat!

Making It Come Alive

"In the twinkling of an eye." Alas, I do know why I am so proud!
Our kids did us proud last night in The Merchant of Venice! The Merchant (our curly boy) was dignified and mature. Salarino (Our girl) was well spoken and well delivered. And Gratiano (our curly red) was a main laugh-bringer of the evening. They did a great job and they perform again on Friday night of this week in their main roles, and then on Saturday in their minor roles. 

One of the things that continues to rise to the surface about the kids that take part in this Shakespeare group is that through the process of rehearsals and discussion they so thoroughly comprehend Shakespeare's work...in the original. They work right from the Folger's edition of each script and there are very few cuts and edits to that version. Nothing is dumbed down. Many would say that Shakespeare is inaccessible to kids of today (and to adults too!). Nothing is further from the truth in my experience. 

I remember in High School having Sr. Mary Anderson "perform" -through reading aloud to us--- many of the plays of Shakespeare. I know that several of my classmates found it boring and "hard." I remember thinking that it was interesting and that she was able to bring those plays to life to me, even though it wasn't being performed. -- When I started my study of theater in college, I fell in love with theater in  performance and I am so glad that my kids can take part in "living theater." Theater as it ought to be, if at all possible. Making Shakespeare alive for themselves and in extension, for their audiences is such a wonderful thing! I don't think my kids are necessarily more able to grasp Shakespeare than others. I just think that taking the opportunity has tipped the scales in their favor.

If I said that they are doing Hamlet next year and that they are SO excited about it that they've begun reading it...and one of them has read it through twice since the announcement last week...perhaps that would support my point.
"That it should come to this!" I'm not terribly surprised, but I'm thoroughly pleased.