Be a Sponge

As home schoolers, we strive to be learning all the time, and this month we inadvertently put it to the test. At our karate school, the kids participate in a Character Education program in which they earn “STAR” pins for monthly activities. This month’s was to “Be a Sponge,” and try to learn something every day.

My oldest son interpreted this literally, figuring he needed to make a list of what he learned every day. By the time I found out we didn’t have to be quite that thorough, it was too amusing to stop. He’d worried briefly that by “learning” they meant what you learned in school, but I told him learning is learning, and anything was up for grabs. So, for the month of October, in his own words, this is what he learned:

1. That dad will drink clam juice coffee because he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.
2. Catching snails was easy.
3. That falafels taste better than I thought they would.
4. How to do a Hijikiukierankenski.
5. How to identify a yellow-throated strangler frog.
6. How to draw a human head.
7. That I wouldn’t die if I went out in the woods (with Mom) at night.
8. How to build a set of walls out of pipes.
9. Some red foxes can be black.
10. That sassafras is used to flavor root beer.
11. That the Day of the Dead is October 31 (Halloween).
12. How to play Zum Gali Gali on the accordion.
13. That guinea pig hairs are bigger than human hairs.
14. If you find something in the corner of the bathroom, don’t eat it.
15. How to launch a rocket.
16. That our cat Oreo likes cheese.
17. That guanabana can cure fever.
18. How to make Dia de la Muertos bread.
19. How to make a presentation.
20. How to draw mixed animals.
21. How to do Sanchin in mirror image.
22. Today was Divali, not yesterday.
23. How to perform a good skit.
24. That Queen Elizabeth only got to the throne because all her siblings died.
25. How to sing a cappella.
26. How to convert fractions.
27. How to add suspense to a comic.
28. How scary someone yelling “Gabba Head” could be.
29. How to make frozen peas.
30. How to tell Vinca from Poison Ivy.
31. How to make improper fractions.

When I was done laughing (with him, not at him, but in a separate room) it struck me how utterly random and appropriately sponge-like his list was. Sometimes we learn new, exciting things, things that will impress other people or show up well on a standardized test, but sometimes we really need to learn obvious things, or things that just call out in their own simple glory. But I consider the experiment a success: he had fun, and I got an easy column out of it.

Half-way through this effort, my son raised the stakes. If learning is fun, as I claim, why don’t I see what I can learn every day next month. If my less spongy brain cells are up for the challenge, I’ll report back.

Ready for School

For most families, getting ready for school means buying school supplies, new clothes, and sending the kids off to one grade higher with a mixture of sadness and relief. Even though the new school year brings on a hectic return to busy routines, at least the routines are familiar. When you home school, though, a big challenge is adapting to completely new routines and rhythms. Most of the time you don’t know what they are yet, and when you figure them out—they change, or life throws you a curve-ball.

Because you’re dealing with children of different ages, especially if they’re small, things are never the same as they were the year before. I had a plan at the end of last year. It was a good plan, but now everyone had to go and get older on me. It’s like changing ingredients: I had eggs, flour, and milk, and I was planning to make cake. Now I have anchovies, flour, and a South African spice rub (and here I must give a nod to middle-child syndrome—my poor middle child is only flour) and I’m thinking why did I ever think I should try and cut out caffeine at the beginning of the school year?

Last year, my little one was two, my five-year old daughter said she wanted to be in kindergarten forever, and my oldest needed a lot of help with his work. I figured I’d consider my daughter Kindergarten, and I’d spend most of my time reading aloud to all my children and working on math with the two oldest. Now my 8-year old wants to do all the reading and math by himself and the three-year old wants to learn how to write and keeps chasing me with his Kindgergarten math book and a pencil. So apparently I will be working with the two little ones, and my daughter will be in “First Grade” so she gets to feel bigger than her little brother. This really wasn’t the plan.

But, most of the joy of home schooling comes from not having to have a “plan.” A few years of doing it wrong and right (and not necessarily in that order) have shown me that finding a rhythm is better than having a plan. Plans go awry, but rhythms will always be there, even if you’re not attuned to them. If we work with our biological rhythms, with the tides of both our pleasures and our challenges, then we seem to get everything done that we need to without anything seeming like a chore. Productivity Researchers have called this “Flow experience.” With three children this is often more like white-water rafting with at least one person trying to jump out of the boat and having forgotten the paddles due to shrieking and whining-induced temporary amnesia. And then there are the Monday morning asthma attacks, missing baby-wipes and errant carseats, and other minor and major catastrophes that have made our weeks so far start out with clenched teeth rather than any sort of “flow”

Maybe that’s the lesson. I can’t control my kids any more than I can control the universe, and I don’t want to. You can’t sing when you clench your teeth. These days our daily rhythm starts with funk bagpipe music at breakfast (again, not my plan). We’ve gotten a lot “done” despite my worry, and had fun doing it: we made taxonomically correct insects out of recyclables and learned all about bees in a graphic novel called “Clan Apis,” gone on several wonderful hikes, and all learned that no one wants to play with you if you’re being a jerk. My son took it on himself to update our write-on-wipe-off map of the United States with apparently all of the known Native American Indian tribes, complete with waves of foreign invasion. My son and I have both learned how to recognize Black Widow and Brown Recluse spiders, which is useful because, according to the field guide, they’re everywhere and hide in blankets.

All of this hasn’t happened because I planned it. It’s all happened because we’ve got enough time at home that our learning doesn’t have to be restricted, or scheduled, and when we’ve got that time, learning and fun are the same thing. We take turns being leaders and followers, teachers and students, just like on a good hike with the sun at our back and the delectable earth crunching underfoot.

Published in the Groton Landmark on Friday, September 29, 2006