Here in the Bonny Glen

My Rule of Six and Whence It Came

It's funny how things you post on the internet take on a life of their own. When I began this blog last spring, I put "Our Rule of Six" in the sidebar (see it down there on the left, under the baby photo?), intending to write a post about it. I touched upon it in one of the very first posts I wrote for this blog, but I always meant to come back to it and explain how the idea developed. Now and then I'll get a nice email from someone who has happened upon the Rule of Six and found it useful, and I'm always so thrilled by that and I'll think, Oh that's right, I need to write that post!

But it's been just a wee bit busy around here these past few months.

While I was on the road last week (or the week before; it's all a blur), my friend Mary G.—whom I had the great pleasure of meeting in person during my Denver visit—popped me a lovely note saying she'd borrowed my Rule of Six for her own blog, and lots of people had responded with their versions, and would I mind if she put together a little Rule of Six Carnival? Of course I was delighted. I've greatly enjoyed reading this collection of posts, seeing how some folks have chimed in with their thoughts about my Rule, and others have put together their own lists.

And I figured it's about time I finished up that old post about what our Rule of Six is and how I came up with it! It's something I've been using for four or five years, and when I think about it, I can't believe I haven't ever posted about it before because it is such an important and constant guideline for me.

It got its start, as so many helpful principles do, in the writings of Charlotte Mason. In A Charlotte Mason Companion, Karen Andreola wrote that Miss Mason believed children needed three things every day: something to love, something to think about, and something to do. (And if you read the other posts in the Carnival, you'll see that the Bookworm, astute woman that she is, picked up on my source immediately!)

I remember it was shortly after we moved from New York to Virginia in 2002 that I looked at the bright faces of my three little girls in their big blue room and made a silent promise to myself to give them that good soul-food every day: something to love, to think about, to do. I thought about what that meant in practical terms, because a concept has to translate very clearly on a practical level if there is any hope of my pulling it off. It's the logistics that get you, every time. Broad principles are like umbrellas, and you need a hand to hold the umbrella with.

And that's how I got to our Rule of Five. (Yes, five. It was Five for the first two or three years. Item number Six didn't join the list until later—which is why I've been tickled to see all these Rules of Six popping up, because ours was the Rule of Five for so long.) I thought of it as the five fingers of a hand, the five things that I strive to make a part of every day we spend together:

• Good books

• Imaginative play

• Encounters with beauty (through art, music, and the natural world—this includes our nature walks)

• Ideas to ponder and discuss (there's Miss Mason's "something to think about")

• Prayer

When Mary borrowed my list, she put prayer at the top to reflect its overarching importance, which makes perfect sense. I have it at the bottom for the very same reason. I always figure that you're most likely to remember the last thing you hear. If I put the most important thing at the bottom of the list, that's the word that echoes in my consciousness afterward.

Also, when the girls were younger it worked so beautifully with a little fingerplay we would do at bedtime. We would hold up a finger for each thing on the list. "What did you play today?" I would ask, and eager stories would bubble forth. "Who remembers what books we read?" "Where did we meet beauty today?" It was such fun, at the end of the day, to listen to their reflections about what we'd done since breakfast. At the end of the list, we'd all be holding up the five fingers of a hand, and then we'd clap our hands together and that meant time to pray.

For us, as Catholics, the word "prayer" in my list is meant to encompass the whole range of religious customs and practices that are woven through our day, celebrating the feasts and seasons of the liturgical year.

But what about the sixth item in my Rule of Six? You see, of course, what's missing from my original list: work. That's because when I first came up with the list, my oldest child was only six, and play WAS her work. A couple of years later, the list grew—like my children. I added "meaningful work" (as opposed to busywork) to express the importance of doing useful things cheerfully and well, with reverence and attention.

And the five-finger visual works even better now, because you can tally off the first five things on the list and then clasp your hands together for the sixth. It's been a long time, though, since we used the fingerplay at the end of the day. I bet Beanie doesn't even remember it. Maybe that's something to return to now that we're settling into a new rhythm, a new place to practice our Rule.

I Need a TV Show So I Can Invite Dr. Phil to Be a Special Guest

I've got a few questions I'd like to ask him, and also I'd like to slap him.  Remember when I posted that Dr. Phil was looking for homeschoolers to be on his show? Yeah, it turned out just about like we expected. Grrr.

HT: Daryl Cobranchi.

How Do You Defend Your Relaxed Approach?

The other day I mentioned that I'm an advocate of a non-academic early childhood. In the comments, Betsy wrote:

I have a question about your relaxed approach. I have been relying on this for years and every one has looked at me like I have three heads. I got into quite the discussion after Mass on day when two moms were playing the competition game of what they were going to home school their soon to be 3 year olds. I chimed in talking about waiting until the child is ready and being relaxed...you should have seen the look of horror on their face!!! How do you handle the "neglectful" response that people seem to give me all the time.

You know, I really love it when people give me an opening like those looks of horror, Betsy. I enthusiastically grab all opportunities to jump up on my soapbox!

In my experience, if you answer skepticism with an eager flood of information, people will nearly always reframe their initial response. Quite often, the are-you-crazy looks are a gut reaction, but when the skeptic hears that you have actually put some thought and research into the issue, her response changes. She may still disagree, but at least she acknowledges that your point of view is an informed one.

So, for example, if someone said, "Are you nuts? Everyone knows that you've got to give kids a strong start from an early age or they'll be behind their peers and never catch up," I'd say, "Actually, there are many educators and scholars who believe just the opposite. Have you read the works of Charlotte Mason? No? John Holt? John Taylor Gatto? Montessori? No? Oh." (Brief pause to digest this astonishing fact.) "Well, if you're interested in how children learn, you'd probably find them quite fascinating, especially Mason; I know I do."—And then I'd launch into a brief but fact-packed description of Charlotte Mason's vision for children under seven, emphasizing the richness of a young life filled with storytelling, nature study, cheerful housework, and song.

I have never, ever presented that picture of early childhood to someone without having the person respond positively. "Oh, that sounds so nice!" is a typical response. I really think people—especially mothers of little ones—recognize the beauty of that vision, even if they remain in disagreement over the issue of early instruction in reading and math.

You know, that touches on an important point. In such conversations (and they occur with surprising frequency), I'm truly not out to convert anyone. I don't initiate them; but if someone opens the door I will jump through it as if there were chocolate on the other side. My aim in this kind of discourse is simply to show that there is thought behind my opinion. It's amazing how much that relaxes people and shifts the tone of the conversation from confrontation to exchange of ideas.

What happens is that people begin to ask questions—specific questions like, "But what about math?" or "So when do you start teaching reading?" Which means I can respond with specific answers, and suddenly, instead of being on opposite sides of an abyss, we're two interested parties discussing learning strategies. It's a whole different kind of conversation, because it naturally leads to book and idea recommendations. ("Oh, gosh, my kids have learned so much math just from playing store or cooking. You learn a ton about fractions from making cookies!")

And that kind of conversation is just FUN.

I Love When It All Comes Together

I'd love to take credit for planning the trip down the lovely little path the kids and I are following at the moment, but I can't. The trail appeared before us and we set forth, that's all. It started with Our Island Saints, a book I'd ordered from Yesterday's Classics last year.

No, wait, I guess it really started with my decision to take a cue from the Waldorf folks and keep "saints and heroes" in mind as a kind of over-arching theme for Rose and Beanie this year. An umbrella, if you will, to provide some shelter from the chaos of our move. Our Year of Saints & Heroes. It has a nice high-tide sound to it, though of course you know we'll be spending much of this year in the lowest of low tides. And that's fine. We thrive on low tide around here.

(Hey! Just occurred to me! I get to add actual BEACH experience to my whole Tidal Homeschooling thing! You SEE the lengths to which I will go in order to flesh out a metaphor for you?)

Anyway. Our Island Saints, I was saying. We started with St. Brigid of Ireland because she is special to my family, and also she is the patron saint of scholars and babies. Before I began reading (this was one day last week), I printed out some pictures for the kids to color: pictures of the saint for the younger girls, a complicated Celtic knot for Jane.

I read part of the story (it's long) and a good deal of it was about how kind and generous Brigid was to the poor, how she'd give away her bread to any ragged stranger she passed on the road. That reminded me of a poem I love—Alice chose it for the first post on her blog last year—and I sent Jane to fetch The Harp and Laurel Wreath so we could read it together. It is "An Old Woman of the Roads" by Padraic Colum, and it begins like this:

O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

The poor, bereft, wandering old woman: she could use a Brigid in her life.

After we read it and talked about it, I got a little goose-bumpy, because I remembered that Padraic Colum is the author of the VERY NEXT BOOK I had planned for a read-aloud. It's called The King of Ireland's Son, and if you've never read it, you've got to treat yourself to the rollicking, lilting (hey!) adventure of it. Sure and 'tis as fine a bit o' storytellin' as ivver I've seen. Weaving together the strands of old Irish tales, Colum creates a rich and riotous tapestry of princes and enchanters, cats and kings, monsters and maidens, songs and swords.

Like this:

"...the youth I'm telling you about did nothing but ride and hunt all day. Well, one morning he rode abroad—

"His hound at his heel,
His hawk on his wrist;
A brave steed to carry him whither he list,
And the blue sky over him,

"and he rode on until he came to a turn in the road.  There he saw a gray old man seated on a heap of stones playing a game of cards with himself. First he had one hand winning and then he had the other. Now he would say 'That's my good right,' and then he would say 'Play and beat that, my gallant left.' The King of Ireland's Son sat on his horse to watch the strange old man..."

Irresistible, I'm telling you.

And so,

with my babe in my lap
and my boy at my knee,
and my big girls before me as rapt as can be,
and the boxes all around us,

we are off on another adventure, and fie to the packing.

Really Good Books, Right There on Your Screen

This morning, before a well-intentioned realtor played a game of Psych! with my day, I was raving to a friend about the fabulous, wonderful, incredible resource that is The Baldwin Project, and I realized I haven't raved about it HERE nearly enough. I've linked to it several times, but I haven't taaaaalllllked about it. And that's what I do, talktalktalk about the Delightful Resources we use for the Cultivation of Mind and Spirit. (My more dignified and hyper-capitalized way of saying "fun learning stuff.")

So. The Baldwin Project. Do you all know about this? It's books. Books that volunteers have generously devoted their time to scanning in or typing in or I don't know how they get them IN, but they're IN THERE, just waiting for you to read them to your kids. Print them out, download them, whatever you want. If you want a nice papery-smelling actual hard copy to hold in your bookloving hands, you can buy those at the project's publishing arm, Yesterday's Classics. At quite reasonable prices, I might add.

These are old books, books that went out of print or fell into the public domain. Lovely old books like Famous Men of Greece, Famous Men of Rome, The Blue Fairy Book, Among the Pond People, Tanglewood Tales, Wild Animals I Have Known, and oh how the list goes on. There are treasures here, rich books, living books, stories to make a mind soar and a heart grow.

If you're an Ambleside Online user, you probably already know about the Baldwin Project. If it's new to you, prepare to lose an afternoon—and gain aeons.

Well, I AM Opinionated...

...but no, I think I'll pass on the opportunity to rap with Dr. Phil. Now, if Jon Stewart wants to talk homeschooling, I am so there.

Via Spunky:

Do you think home schooling children is the best way for them to be educated?  Do you believe the home environment allows children to learn at a pace that they’re most comfortable with? Do you think it’s important for children to decide what subjects they're interested in so they can concentrate on what most stimulates their mind?  Or do you home school your child to protect them from being teased, taunted, or bullied.  If you want to tell to Dr. Phil why you have a strong opinion on home schooling, please tell us your story!!!

I love the disingenousness of this blurb from the Dr. Phil website. Do you believe the home environment allows children to learn at a pace that they’re most comfortable with? Well, yeah. But at least it seems like the folks behind it have made a stab at doing their research...sounds like they've picked up on unschooling as a possibility, and they're aware that people are choosing home education for a variety of reasons, and that there can be many different "strong opinions" about why homeschooling is a great choice.

But the headline on that web page is "Believe ONLY in Home Schooling?"—which is a loaded question and makes me suspicious...I hope the show doesn't end up being a showcase of strident, extremist personalities who leave viewers with a bad impression. So go ahead, you nice, sane, personable Lilting House readers: go out there and show the world how charming we are!

Not Back to School

Last week at the neighborhood pool, I was shocked to learn that most of the kids were starting school again on Monday. As in yesterday. It seems so early this year, but the moms said it's the same week school started last year—a week earlier than years past, they thought. The school year has inched its way longer because there are more teacher workdays built into the schedule.

Yesterday morning, everyone in my house slept late because we'd had a big day on Sunday. Also I think we were all sort of hiding from Monday, aka The Day Daddy Goes Away Again. I was the first one up, and as I came down the stairs at 7:30, I saw Rose's best buddy from across the street heading for the bus stop with his mom. He'll be in second grade this year; Rose is, according to the state of Virginia, in third.

We don't pay much attention to grades except as a frame of reference for other kids. Jane would be in sixth grade if she were in school. Sixth grade! That's middle school! Over the summer I listened to other moms, my friends, worry about the middle school transition without really registering that I'd be in the same boat if we had traveled another, um, river. We're in a different kind of transition here. Yesterday, while their neighborhood friends were getting acclimated to new teachers, new classmates, new school clothes, my kids were:

1) playing games in a bank lobby while Scott and I tried unsuccessfully to get me added to his new bank account (because even though it's a national bank with the word America in its NAME, for Pete's sake, with glossy brochures about how YOU CAN DO YOUR BANKING ONLINE! and WE ARE SO TECHNOLOGICALLY ADVANCED, YOU WILL THINK YOU ARE A JETSON!—well, that's the gist, anyway—it turns out I have to actually BE in California to be added to the account he opened at a California branch, because the East Coast and West Coast computers don't speak each other's languages and all they can do is bat their fiber-optic eyelashes at each other and smile blank yet amiable smiles);

2) driving to the airport and discussing the dreaded monkey-face disease in sheep, caused by ewes' consumption of Western false hellebore while pregnant (where "discussion" = "Jane telling us all about it, and the rest of us saying 'Seriously? Where did you hear about this?' ");

3) sobbing in the airport;

4) sobbing half the way home, until

5) someone suggested the Snoopy CD, and we discovered that showtunes may not be able to heal a broken heart, but they can drown it out for a while.

As for today, here's what Beanie has planned. (She just showed me the schedule she filled out in an out-of-date planner.)

Sleeping (already checked off)
Read
Read
Plays
Lean*
Lean
Sleeps

*(Me: "Lean?" Beanie, laughing like I'm adorably silly: "No, it says LEARN!")

Which I guess means I don't have to cook today. Excellent. We will just read, play, and lean.

The Homeschooling Meme

The Bookworm tagged me in her homeschooling meme, so here goes:

1) ONE HOMESCHOOLING BOOK YOU HAVE ENJOYED

Only one? This is torture. So many have gripped me, moved me, inspired me. But if I must limit myself to one: Towards a Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason.

2) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT

The Real Learning booklist.

3) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER BOUGHT

Right Start Math. I know it's a great fit for some, but all that prep time! And with my kids begging to watch the Math-U-See dvds FOR FUN all the time, why did I even think I needed more math curriculum anyway? What can I say, it was an impulse conference purchase (several years ago).

4) ONE RESOURCE YOU ENJOYED LAST YEAR

Last year. Hmm. See, this is why blogs are a good thing. Let me check my archives. (Interjection from Rose: "Greek!") Aha! I've got it: Journey North. We joined with a group of online friends and had a ball charting photoperiods and deciphering clues to mystery locations around the world. Can't wait to do it again next year.

5) ONE RESOURCE YOU WILL BE USING NEXT YEAR

I already told you about my plans, but let's see, what haven't I mentioned? Well, there's this book, American Sign Language the Easy Way, which we're using to continue our ASL studies.

6) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY

An audible.com subscription and then whatever device I'd need to be able to play audio books for all of us to hear, including in the car.

7) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH EXISTED

A really good weekly current events newspaper for kids.

8) ONE HOMESCHOOLING CATALOGUE YOU ENJOY READING

FUN-Books! I'll take one of everything, please.

9) ONE HOMESCHOOLING WEBSITE YOU USE REGULARLY

Ambleside Online.

10) TAG FIVE OTHER HOMESCHOOLERS

The Deputy Headmistress
Spunky
Becky
Denise
Shannon

(Because I know all my Real Learning pals will get tagged by one another. Just in case, all of you consider yourselves tagged.)

We Have a Winner!

Three of them, actually. Diane, Stephanie, and Cici all correctly guessed the answer to yesterday's trivia question: Charlotte Tucker (Quiner Holbrook), maternal grandmother of Laura Ingalls Wilder. (Which is to say: Ma's ma.) Charlotte was born in 1809 along with Edgar Allen Poe and a whole bunch of other notable personages, such as Alfred Lord Tennyson and Abraham Lincoln (as Ryane pointed out). Also Louis Braille, British statesman William Gladstone, Charles Darwin, and Felix Mendelssohn. Quite a year for history, I'd say.

My girls discovered the 1809 connection when we read Abraham Lincoln's World by Genevieve Foster. (If you don't know the Foster books, you'll want to check them out—they are an engaging and fascinating look at various historical periods, each one digging in deep to world history during the lifetime of a key historical figure like Lincoln, Washington, William Penn, or Columbus. They make terrific read-alouds for a wide age range. I'll be reading Augustus Caesar's World to my gang during the upcoming year.)

We were excited to realize that Abe Lincoln was born just a few months before our good friend Charlotte Tucker. For me, Lincoln is so firmly connected to the Civil War that I had never given a moment's thought to what was going on in the world when he was growing up. The War of 1812! Madison and Monroe! Jefferson was still alive, for decades! Do you ever think of Lincoln and Jefferson as having overlapped?

Anyway, Charlotte is the person I mentioned yesterday who is so very important to me. After writing books about her, she feels in some ways like another one of my own little girls. Same with her mother, Martha. Perhaps even more so with Martha because I've written about her both as a child and as a mother.

I know I said I'd give a signed book to the first person to get the right answer, but the three Charlotte answers came in so close together that what the heck, you all win. Email me your address and the name or names you'd like me to put in the book (you? your kids?), and I'll send you each a copy. Also let me know if there's a particular Charlotte or Martha book you'd like to receive.

Thanks to all who proffered a guess!

Tags: homeschooling, homeschool, unschooling, Charlotte Tucker, Little House, history, Lincoln

I Heart Google

From now on, when people ask me where my kids go to school, I will not answer, as I usually do, "They're homeschooled." I'm going to start saying, "They're homeschoogled" instead. Just to see what kind of reaction I get. Ever since I whisked all our baskets of books down to the basement to make the house Extra Special Nice for showing to potential buyers, the kids and I have relied on these here internets more than ever. Scary new bug on the porch? Google it. Something new to do with chicken breasts? Google it. Want to see the view from the water taxi daddy rode on last night? (Everybody chime in:) Google it.

Remember when we used to look up synonyms in actual books? When's the last time you opened a paper thesaurus?

Homeschoogle. I like it.